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PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


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BX  9178  .T3  E8 

Talmage,  T.  De  Witt  1832- 

1902. 
Every-day  religion 


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WORKS  BY  T.  DE  WITT   TALMAGE,  D.D, 


SERMONS.  Kew  Series,  consisting  of  four  volumes.  Vol.  I.  "  Sundown," 
and  32  other  Sermons;  VolII.  "Fishing  Too  Near  Shore,  "and  35  other 
Sermons;  Vol.  III.  "Old  Wells  Dug  Out,"  and 23  other  Sermons;  Vol. 
rv.  "  Every-Day  Religion,"  and  32  other  Sermons.  12mo,  cloth,  each 
$2.00.— 'The  Brooklyn  Tabernacle  "—104  Sermons.     4to,  cloth  $1.50. 

Eev  C.  H.  Spurgeon:  "  Mr.  Talmage's  discourses  lay  hold  of  my  Inmost 
soul.  The  Lord  is  with  this  mighty  man  of  valor.  So  may  he  ever  be  till 
the  camisaign  closes  with  victory!  I  am  indeed  glad  of  his  voice.  It  cheers 
me  intensely.  He  loves  the  Gospel  and  believes  in  something,  which  some 
preachers  liardly  do.  There  are  those  about  who  use  the  old  labels,  but 
the  articles  are  not  the  same.  May  the  Lord  win  armies  of  souls  to  Jesus 
by  this  man!  I  am  astonished  when  God  blesses  me,  but  somehow  I 
s'aould  not  be  so  much  surprised  if  He  hlessed  this  man." 

E.  D.  G.  Pkime,  D  D,  New  York  Observer  :  "These  sermons  I  regard  as 
among  the  best  specimena  of  the  simple,  earnest  and  pungent  presenta- 
tion of  the  solemn  and  precious  truths  of  the  Gospel  that  I  have  ever  read. 
They  have  a  fertility  of  illustration  that  is  marvelous. 


AROUND  THE  TEA  TABLE.    A  volume  of  familiar  talks  on  Domestic, 
Social  and  Keligious  Topics.    12mo,  509  pp.,  cloth,  $1.50. 

Partial   Contents.— The  Balloon  Wedding.     Beefsteak  for  Ministers. 

The  Sexton.    Massacre  of  Church  Music.    Battle  of  Pew  and  Pulpit. 

Push  and  Pull.    Mondayish  Feeling.    Behavior  at  Church.    Short  or 

long  Pastorates  ?    Balky  People.    Anonymous  Letters.  Warm  Weather 

Eeligion.     Ee.formation  in  Letter  Writing.      Sabbath  Evening  Tea 

Table.    Family  Prayers.    Bereavement.    Harsh  Criticisms. 

The  Independent,  "New  York:  "  Talmage's  conceptions  of  men  and  things 

are  so  vivid  that  he  cp.nnot  be  said  to  possess  them — they  possess  him.  He 

is  dramatic,  and  cannot  describe  without  acting.    He  has  a  clear,  incisive 

mind,  a  broad  and  genial  humor,  a  high  and  exacting  conscientiousness, 

kindly  sympathy,  a  vivid  imagination,  vehement  passion,  and  every  blow 

tells." 


FUNK  &  WAGNALLS,  Publishers,  lo  and  12   Dey  St.,  New  York. 


EVERY- DAY  RELIGION: 


SERMONS  DELIVERED  IX  THE  BROOKLYN  TABERNACLE, 


BY 


;       JAN  11  1315 
T.  DE   WITT   TALMAGE,,  ,^<^ 


y 


AUTHOR   OF 


'first  series  of  sermons,"  "second  series  of  sermons,"  "abominations  of 
modern  society,"  "  crumbs  swept  up,"  "  old  wells  dug  out," 

"around  the  tea-table,"   "sports   THAT    KILL,"  ETC. 


REVISED  FROM   PHONOGRAPHIC  REPORTS. 


NEW   YORK: 

FUNK    &   WAGNALLS, 

10  AND  12  Dey  Street. 
188G. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1886,  by 

FUNK  &  WAGNALLS, 

In  tae  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress  at  Washington,  D.  C. 


PREFACE. 


'"pHESE  discourses  attempt  ^^  bring  tlie  Gospel  to  tlie 
-*-  hearts  and  homes  of  the  people,  as  a  present  comfort, 
?7arning,  and  necessity.     Hence  the  title  of  the  book. 

I  thank  the  public  for  their  kiad  reception  of  former 
volumes,  and  also  the  Christian  newspapers  which  each 
week  put  my  sermons  before  one  million  three  hundred 
and  eighty  thousand  readers  in  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States;  thus  giving  me  the  opportunity  of  preach- 
ing Christ  to  multitudes  whom  I  can  not  hope  to  meet  till 
on  that  day  when  we  must  answer  for  words  spoken  or 
heard.     My  Christian  greeting  to  all! 

T.  De  Witt  Talmage. 

Brooklyn,  March,  1886. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

EVKRT-DAY   RELIGION 7 

LIFE   AT   HOME 21 

THE    OLD    CORN    OF    CANAAN 33 

ZIKLAG   IN   ASHES 46 

THE    RELIGION    OF    GHOSTS 59  l^ 

SNOW-AVATER    AND    ALKALI    INSUFFICIENT 75 

8TRIP1I.NG    THE    SLAIN 89 

A    SUM   IN    GOSPEL   ARITHMETIC 101 

SWIMMING    FOR    LIFE 114 

THE    CHRISTIAN    AT    THE    RAI.LOT-UOX 12G 

THE   OVERFLOWING   CUP 13G 

THE    WRECK    OF    THE    "  SCHILLER  " 149 

EXASPERATING    COMFORTERS IGO 

A   GOOD    WOMAN    PROMOTED 174 

THE   CRIMSON  COAT 189 

THE    SYRACUSE    CALAMITY 198 

THINGS    WE    NEVER    GET    OVER 208     \^ 

THE    RROKEN-UP    FUNERAL 220 

BARTERING    FOR    ETERNITY 231 

A    BASKET    OF    SUMMER    FRUIT 243 

THE    LAST    ACT    OF    THE    TRAGEDY 254 

DROAVNED    IN   THE    LAKE 2GG 

THE    RED    CORD    IN    THE    WINDOW 27G 


6  ■  CUXTKNTS. 

PAGE 
THE    LAMP 288 

thk  dying  need  of  the  church 300 

/^view  from  the  palace  windoav 313    ^ 

Paul's  valedictory 325 

honey  from  a  strange  hive 337 

the  knell  of  nineveh 350 

pillows  under  the  arms 362  '/"^ 

what  kills  ministers 380 

the  superhuman  jesus 895 

wrecked  for  two  worlds 409 


EVERY-DAY  RELIGION. 


EVERY-DAY  EELIGION. 


"Whether  therefore  ye  eat  or  drink,  or  whatsoever  ye  do,  do  all  to  the 
glory  of  God." — 1  Corinthians  x.,  31. 

WHEN  the  npostlc,  in  this  text,  sets  forth  the  idea  that 
so  common  an  action  as  the  taking  of  food  and 
drink  is  to  be  conducted  to  the  glory  of  God,  he  proclaims 
the  importance  of  religion  in  the  ordinary  affairs  of  our 
life.  In  all  ages  of  the  world  there  has  been  a  tendency 
to  set  apart  certain  days,  places,  and  occasions  for  worship, 
and  to  think  those  were  the  chief  realms  in  which  religion 
was  to  act.  Now,  holy  days  and  holy  places  have  their 
importance.  They  give  opportunity  for  especial  perform- 
ance of  Christian  duty,  and  for  regaling  of  the  religious 
appetite;  but  they  can  not  take  the  place  of  continuous 
exercise  of  faith  and  prayer.  In  other  words,  a  man  can 
not  be  so  much  of  a  Christian  on  Sunday  that  he  can 
afford  to  be  a  worldling  all  the  rest  of  the  week.  If  a 
steamer  put  out  for  Southampton,  and  go  one  day  in  that 
direction,  and  the  other  six  days  go  in  other  directions, 
how  long  before  the  steamer  will  get  to  Southampton?  It 
will  never  get  there.  And  though  a  man  may  seem  to  be 
voyaging  heavenward  during  the  holy  Sabbath-day,  if. 


8  EYERY-UAY  llELIGION. 

during  the  following  six  days  of  the  week,  he  is  going  to 
ward  the  world,  and  toward  the  flesh,  and  toward  the  devil 
he  will  never  ride  up  into  the  peaceful  harbor  of  heaven 
You  can  not  eat  so  much  at  the  Sabbath  banquet  that  you 
can  afford  religious  abstinence  the  other  six  days.     Hero 
ism  and  princely  behavior  on  great  occasions  are  no  apolo 
gy  for  lack  of  right  demeanor  in  circumstances  insignificant 
and  inconspicuous.     The  genuine  Christian  life  is  not  spas- 
modic ;  does  not  go  by  fits  and  starts.     It  toils  on  through 
heat  and  cold,  up  steep  mountains  and  along  dangerous 
declivities,  its  eye  on  the  everlasting  hills  crowned  with  the 
castles  of  the  blessed. 

I  propose,  this  morning,  to  make  a  plea  in  behalf  of  what 
I  shall  call  "every-day  religion." 

In  the  first  place,  we  want  to  bring  the  religion  of  Christ 
into  our  every-day  conversation.  When  a  dam  breaks,  and 
two  or  three  villages  in  Massachusetts  are  overwhelmed, 
or  an  earthquake  in  South  America  swallows  a  whole  cit}'", 
then  people  begin  to  talk  about  the  uncertainty  of  life, 
and  they  imagine  that  they  are  engaged  in  positively  re- 
ligious conversation.  No.  You  may  talk  about  these 
things,  and  have  no  grace  of  God  at  all  in  your  heart. 
We  ought  every  day  to  be  talking  religion.  If  there  is 
any  thing  glad  about  it,  an}'-  thing  beautiful  about  it,  any 
thing  important  about  it,  we  ought  to  be  continuously 
discussing  it.  I  have  noticed  that  men,  just  in  propor- 
tion as  their  Christian  experience  is  shallow,  talk  about 
funerals,  and  grave-yards,  and  tombstones,  and  death-beds. 
The  real,  genuine  Christian  man  talks  chiefly  about  this 
life,  and  the  great  eternity  beyond,  and  not  so  much  about 
the  insignificant  pass  between  these  two  residences.  And 
yet  how  few  circles  there  are  where  the  religion  of  Jesus 


EVERYDAY  RELIGION.  9 

Christ  is  welcome.  Go  into  a  circle,  even  of  Christian  peo- 
ple, where  they  are  full  of  joy  and  hilarity,  and  talk  about 
Christ  or  heaven,  and  every  thing  is  immediately  silenced. 
As  on  a  summer  day,  when  the  forests  are  full  of  life,  chat- 
ter, and  chirrup,  and  carol — a  mighty  chorus  of  bird-harmo- 
ny, every  tree-branch  an  orchestra — if  a  hawk  appear  in 
the  sky,  every  voice  stops,  and  the  forests  are  still;  just  so 
I  have  seen  a  lively  religious  circle  silenced  on  the  appear- 
ance of  any  thing  like  religious  conversation.  No  one  had 
any  thing  to  say,  save,  perhaps,  some  old  patriarch  in  the 
corner  of  the  room,  who  really  thinks  that  something  ought 
to  be  said,  under  the  circumstances;  so  he  puts  one  foot 
over  the  other,  and  heaves  a  long  sigh,  and  says,  "  Oh  yes; 
that's  so,  that's  so !" 

My  friends,  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ  is  something  to 
talk  about  with  a  glad  heart.  It  is  brighter  than  the  wa- 
ters; it  is  more  cheerful  than  the  sunshine.  Do  not  go 
around  groaning  about  your  religion,  when  you  ought 
to  be  singing  it  or  talking  it  in  cheerful  tones  of  voice. 
How  often  it  is  that  we  find  men  whose  lives  are  utter- 
ly inconsistent,  who  attempt  to  talk  religion,  and  alwaj'S 
make  a  failure  of  it!  My  friends,  we  must  live  religion, 
or  we  can  not  talk  it.  If  a  man  is  cranky,  and  cross,  and 
uncongenial,  and  hard  in  his  dealings,  and  then  begins  to 
talk  about  Christ  and  heaven,  %\q,\^  body  is  repelled  by  it. 
Yet  I  have  sometimes  heard  such  men  say,  in  whining 
tones,  "We  are  miserable  sinners ;"  "  The  Lord  bless  you  ;" 
"  The  Lord  have  mercy  on  j'ou  ;"  their  conversation  inter- 
larded with  such  expressions,  which  mean  nothing  but 
canting;  and  canting  is  the  worst  form  of  hypocris3\  If 
we  liave  really  felt  the  religion  of  Christ  in  our  hearts,  let 
us  talk  it,  and  talk  it  with  an  illuminated  countenance,  re- 

1* 


10  EVERY-DAY  liELWlOX. 

inembering  that  when  two  Christian  people  talk,  God  gives 
especial  attention,  and  writes  down  what  they  say.  Mala- 
chi  iii.,  16 :  "  Then  they  that  feared  the  Lord  spake  often 
one  to  another;  and  the  Lord  hearkened  and  heard  it,  and 
a  book  of  remembrance  was  written." 

Again  I  remark:  we  must  bring  the  religion  of  Christ 
into  our  every-day  emjjloymenis.  "Oh,"  you  say,  "that  is 
very  well  if  a  man  handle  large  sums  of  money,  or  if  he 
have  an  extensive  traffic;  it  is  very  well  for  this  importer 
of  silks,  for  the  bankers  and  shippers,  for  the  Rothschilds 
and  the  Barings;  but  in  my  thread-and-needle  store,  in 
my  trimming  establishment,  in  the  humble  work  in  life 
that  I  am  called  to,  the  sphere  is  too  small  for  the  action 
of  such  grand  heavenly  principles."  Who  told  you  so? 
Do  you  not  know  that  God  watches  the  faded  leaf  on  the 
brook's  surface  as  certainly  as  he  does  the  path  of  a  blaz- 
ing sun  ?  And  the  moss  that  creeps  up  the  side  of  the 
rock  makes  as  much  impression  upon  God's  mind  as  the 
waving  tops  of  Oregon  pine  and  Lebanon  cedar;  and  the 
alder,  crackling  under  the  cow's  hoof,  sounds  as  loud  in 
God's  ear  as  the  snap  of  a  world's  conflagration.  When 
you  have  any  thing  to  do  in  life,  however  humble  it  may 
seem  to  be,  God  is  always  there  to  help  you  to  do  it.  If 
your  work  is  that  of  a  fisherman,  then  God  will  help  you, 
as  he  helped  Simon  when  he  dragged  Gennesaret.  If  your 
work  is  drawing  water,  then  he  will  help  you,  as  when  he 
talked  at  the  well-curb  to  the  Samaritan  woman.  If  you 
are  engaged  in  the  custom-house,  he  will  lead  you,  as  he 
led  Matthew  sitting  at  the  receipt  of  customs.  A  religion 
that  is  not  good  in  one  place  is  not  worth  any  thing  in 
another  place.  The  man  who  has  only  a  day's  wages  in 
his  pocket  as  certainly  needs  the  guidance  of  religion,  as 


EVER Y-DA  Y  RELIGION.  1 1 

he  who  rattles  the  keys  of  a  bank,  and  could  abscond  with 
a  hundred  thousand  hard  dollars. 

There  are  those  prominent  in  the  churches  who  seem  to 
be,  on  public  occasions,  very  devout,  who  do  not  put  the 
principles  of  Christ's  religion  into  practice.  They  are  the 
most  inexorable  of  creditors.  They  are  the  most  grasping 
of  dealers.  They  are  known  as  sharpers  on  the  street. 
They  fleece  every  sheep  they  can  catch.  A  country  mer- 
chant comes  in  to  buy  spring  or  fall  goods,  and  he  gets 
into  the  store  of  one  of  these  professed  Christian  men  who 
have  really  no  grace  in  their  hearts,  and  he  is  completely 
swindled.  lie  is  so  overcome  that  he  can  not  get  out  of 
town  during  the  week.  He  stays  in  town  over  Sunday, 
goes  into  some  church  to  get  Christian  consolation,  when, 
what  is  his  amazement  to  find  that  the  very  man  who 
hands  him  the  poor-box  in  the  church  is  the  one  who  re- 
lieved him  of  his  money  !  But  never  mind  ;  the  deacon  has 
his  black  coat  on  now.  He  looks  solemn,  and  goes  home 
talking  about  "  the  blessed  sermon."  If  the  wheat  in  the 
churches  should  be  put  into  a  hopper,  the  first  turn  of  the 
crank  would  make  the  chaff  flj^,  I  tell  you.  Some  of  these 
men  are  great  sticklers  for  Gospel  preaching.  They  say, 
"  You  stand  there  in  bands  and  surplice  and  gown,  and 
preach — preach  like  an  angel,  and  we  will  stand  out  here 
and  attend  to  business.  Don't  mix  things.  Don't  get 
business  and  religion  in  the  same  bucket.  You  attend  to 
your  matters,  and  we  will  attend  to  ours."  They  do  not 
know  that  God  sees  every  cheat  they  have  practiced  in 
the  last  six  years;  that  he  can  look  through  the  iron  wall 
of  their  fire-proof  safe  ;  that  he  has  counted  every  dishon- 
est greenback  they  have  in  their  })ockct,  and  that  a  day 
of  judgment  will  come.     These  inconsistent  Christian  men 


12  EVER  YD  A  Y  RELIGIOX. 

will  sit  on  the  Sabbath  night  in  the  house  of  God,  singing, 
at  the  close  of  the  service,  "  Eock  of  Ages  cleft  for  Me," 
and  then,  when  the  benediction  is  pronounced,  shut  the 
pew-door,  and  say,  as  they  go  out,  "  Good-bye,  Religion, 
I'll  be  back  next  Sunday." 

I  think  that  the  Church  of  God  and  the  Sabbath  are 
only  an  armory  where  we  are  to  get  weapons.  When 
war  comes,  if  a  man  wants  to  fight  for  his  country  he  does 
not  go  to  Troy  or  Springfield  to  do  battling,  but  he  goes 
there  for  swords  and  muskets.  I  look  upon  the  Church 
of  Christ  and  the  Sabbath-day  as  only  the  place  and  time 
where  and  when  we  are  to  get  armed  for  Christian  con- 
flict ;  but  the  battle-field  is  on  Monday,  Tuesday,  Wednes- 
day, Thursday,  Friday,  and  Saturday.  "  St.  Martin's,"  and 
"Lenox,"  and  "Old  Hundred"  do  not  amount  to  any  thing 
unless  they  sing  all  the  week.  A  sermon  is  useless  unless 
we  can  take  it  with  us  behind  the  plow  and  the  counter. 
The  Sabbath-day  is  worthless  if  it  last  only  twenty-four 
hours. 

There  are  many  Christians  who  say,  "  We  are  willing 
to  serve  God,  but  we  do  not  want  to  do  it  in  these  spheres 
about  which  we  are  talking ;  it  seems  so  insipid  and  mo- 
notonous. If  we  had  some  great  occasion,  if  we  had  lived 
in  the  time  of  Luther,  if  we  had  been  Paul's  traveling  com- 
panion, if  we  could  serve  God  on  a  great  scale,  we  would 
do  it :  but  we  can't  in  this  every-day  life."  I  admit  that 
a  orreat  deal  of  the  romance  and  knight-errantrv  of  life  has 
disappeared  before  the  advance  of  this  practical  age.  The 
ancient  temples  of  Eouen  have  been  changed  into  store- 
houses and  smithies.  The  residences  of  poets  and  princes 
have  been  turned  into  brokers'  shops.  The  classic  man- 
sion of  Ashland  has  been  cut  up  into  walking-sticks.     The 


EVERY-DAY  MELIOION.  13 

groves  where  the  poets  said  the  gods  dwelt  have  been 
carted  out  for  fire-wood.  The  muses  that  we  used  to  read 
about  have  disappeared  before  the  emigrant's  axe  and  the 
trapper's  gun,  and  a  Vermonter  can  go  over  the  Allc- 
gliany  and  Rocky  Mountains,  and  never  see  an  oread  or  a 
sylph;  and  that  man  who  is  waiting  for  a  life  bewitched 
of  wonders  will  never  find  it.  There  is,  however,  a  field 
for  endurance  and  great  achievement,  but  it  is  in  everj^- 
day  life.  There  are  Alps  to  scale,  there  are  Hellesponts 
to  swim,  there  are  fires  to  brave  ;  but  they  are  all  around 
us  now.  This  is  the  hardest  kind  of  martyrdom  to  bear. 
It  took  grace  to  lead  Latimer  and  Ridley  through  the  fire 
triumphantly  when  their  armed  enemies  and  their  friends 
were  looking  on  ;  but  it  requires  more  grace  now  to  bring 
men  through  persecution,  when  nobody  is  looking  on.  I 
could  show  you  in  this  city  a  woman  who  has  had  rheuma- 
tism for  twenty  years,  who  has  endured  more  suffering  and 
exhausted  more  grace  than  would  have  made  twenty  mar- 
tyrs pass  triumphantly  through  the  fire.  If  you  are  not 
faithful  in  an  insignificant  position  in  life,  you  would  not  be 
faithful  in  a  grand  mission.  If  you  can  not  stand  the  bite 
of  a  midge,  how  could  you  endure  the  breath  of  a  basilisk? 
Do  not  think  that  any  work  God  gives  you  to  do  in  the 
world  is  on  too  small  a  scale  for  you  to  do.  The  whole 
universe  is  not  ashamed  to  take  care  of  one  little  daisy.  I 
say,  "What  are  3'ou  doing  down  here  in  tlie  grass,  you 
poor  little  daisy?  Are  you  not  afraid  nights?  You  will 
be  neglected,  you  will  die  of  thirst,  you  will  not  be  fed. 
Poor  little  daisy  !"  "No,"  says  a  star,  "I'll  watch  over  it 
to-night."  "No,"  says  a  cloud,  "I'll  give  it  drink." 
"No,"  says  the  sun,  "I'll  warm  it  in  my  bosom."  Then 
I  see  the  pulleys  going,  and  the  clouds  are  drawing  water, 


14  EVERY-DAY  RELIGION. 

and  I  saj,  "  What  are  you  doing  there,  O  clouds  ?"  And 
they  reply,  "  We  are  giving  drink  to  that  daisy."  Then 
the  wind  rises,  and  comes  bending  down  the  wheat,  and 
sounding  its  psalm  through  the  forest,  and  I  cry,  "Whither 
away  on  such  swift  wing,  O  wind?"  And  it  replies,  "We 
are  going  to  cool  the  cheek  of  that  daisy."  And  then  I 
bow  down  and  say,  "  Will  God  take  care  of  the  grass  of 
the  field  ?"  And  a  flower  at  my  foot  responds,  "  Yes  ;  he 
clothes  the  lilies  of  the  field,  and  never  yet  has  forgot- 
ten me,  a  poor  little  daisy."  Oh  1  when  I  see  the  great 
heavens  bending  themselves  to  what  seems  insignificant 
ministration,  when  I  find  out  that  God  does  not  forget  any 
blossom  of  the  spring  or  any  snow-flake  of  the  winter,  I 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  we  can  afford  to  attend  to  the 
minute  things  in  life,  and  that  what  we  do  we  ought  to  do 
well,  since  there  is  as  much  perfection  in  the  construction 
of  a  spider's  eye  as  in  the  conformation  of  flaming  gal- 
axies. Plato  had  a  fable  which  I  have  now  nearly  forgot- 
ten, but  it  ran  something  like  this  :  He  said  spirits  of  the 
other  world  came  back  to  this  world  to  find  a  body  and 
find  a  sphere  of  work.  One  spirit  came  and  took  the  body 
of  a  king,  and  did  his  work.  Another  spirit  came  and 
took  the  body  of  a  poet,  and  did  his  work.  After  a  while 
Ulysses  came,  and  he  said,  "  Why,  all  the  fine  bodies  are 
taken,  and  all  the  grand  work  is  taken.  There  is  nothing 
left  for  me."  And  some  one  replied,  "Ah !  the  best  one 
has  been  left  for  you."  Ulysses  said,  "What's  tliat?" 
And  the  reply  was,  "  The  body  of  a  common  man,  doing 
a  common  work,  and  for  a  common  reward."  A  good  fa- 
ble for  the  world,  and  just  as  good  a  fable  for  the  Church. 
AVhether  we  eat  or  drink,  or  whatsoever  we  do,  let  us  da 
it  to  the  glory  of  God. 


E  VER  Y-DA  Y  HELIOIOX.  15 

Again,  wc  need  to  bring  the  religion  of  Ciirist  into  our 
every- day  trials.  For  severe  losses,  for  bereavement,  for 
trouble  that  slioeks  like  an  earthquake  and  that  blasts  like 
a  storm,  we  prcsei'ibe  religious  eonsolation  ;  but,  business 
man,  for  the  small  annoyanoes  of  last  week,  how  mueh  of 
the  grace  of  God  did  you  apply  ?  "  Oh  !"  j-ou  say,  "  these 
trials  are  too  small  for  such  application."  My  brother, 
they  are  shaping  your  character,  they  are  soui-ing  your 
temper,  they  are  wearing  out  your  patience,  and  they  are 
making  you  less  and  less  of  a  man.  I  go  into  a  sculptor's 
studio,  and  see  him  shaping  a  statue.  He  has  a  chisel  in 
one  hand  and  a  mallet  in  the  other,  and  he  gives  a  very 
gentle  stroke — click,  click,  click  !  I  sa\'-,  "  Why  don't  you 
strike  harder?''  "  Oh  !"  he  replies,  "  that  would  shatter  the 
statue.  I  can't  do  it  that  way;  I  must  do  it  this  way." 
So  he  works  on,  and  after  a  while  the  features  come  out, 
and  every  body  that  enters  the  studio  is  charmed  and  fas- 
cinated. Well,  God  has  your  soul  under  process  of  devel- 
opment, and  it  is  the  little  annoyances  and  vexations  of 
life  that  are  chiseling  out  your  immortal  nature.  It  is 
click,  click,  click!  I  wonder  why  some  great  providence 
does  not  come,  and  with  one  stroke  prepare  you  for  heav- 
en. Ah,  no.  God  says  that  is  not  the  way.  And  so  he 
keeps  on  by  strokes  of  little  annoyances,  little  sorrows,  lit- 
tle vexations,  until  at  last  you  shall  be  a  glad  spectacle  for 
angels  and  for  men.  You  know  that  a  large  fortune  may 
be  spent  in  small  change,  and  a  vast  amount  of  moral  char- 
acter may  go  away  in  small  depletion.  It  is  the  little  trou- 
bles of  life  that  are  having  more  effect  upon  you  than  great 
ones.  A  swarm  of  locusts  will  kill  a  grain -field  sooner 
than  the  incursion  of  three  or  four  cattle.  You  say,  "Since 
I  lost  my  child,  since  I  lost  my  property,  I  have  been  a 


16  ^  VEM  YD  A  Y  RELIGION. 

different  man."  But  you  do  not  recognize  the  architecture 
of  little  annoj'ances  that  are  hewing,  digging,  cutting,  shap- 
ing, splitting,  and  interjoining  your  moral  qualities.  Eats 
may  sink  a  ship.  One  lucifer-match  may  send  destruction 
through  a  block  of  store-houses.  Catherine  de  Medicis  got 
her  death  from  smelling  a  poisonous  rose.  Columbus,  by 
stopping  and  asking  for  a  piece  of  bread  and  a  drink  of 
water  at  a  Franciscan  convent,  was  led  to  the  discovery  of 
a  new  world.  And  there  is  an  intimate  connection  be- 
tween trifles  and  immensities,  between  nothings  and  every- 
things. 

Now,  be  careful  to  let  none  of  those  annoyances  go 
through  your  soul  unarraigned.  Compel  them  to  admin- 
ister to  your  spiritual  wealth.  The  scratch  of  a  sixpenny 
rail  sometimes  produces  locked-jaw,  and  the  clip  of  a  most 
infinitesimal  annoyance  may  damage  you  forever.  Do  not 
let  any  annoyance  or  perplexity  come  across  j-our  soul 
without  its  making  you  better. 

Our  National  Government  does  not  think  it  belittling  to 
put  a  tax  on  pins,  and  a  tax  on  buckles,  and  a  tax  on  shoes. 
The  individual  taxes  do  not  amount  to  much,  but  in  the 
aggregate  to  millions  and  millions  of  dollars.  And  I 
would  have  you,  O  Christian  man,  put  a  high  tariff  on 
every  annoyance  and  vexation  that  comes  through  j^our 
soul.  This  might  not  amount  to  much,  in  single  cases, 
but  in  the  aggregate  it  would  be  a  great  revenue  of  spirit- 
ual strength  and  satisfaction.  A  bee  can  suck  hone}''  even 
out  of  a  nettle;  and  if  3'ou  have  the  grace  of  God  in  3'our 
heart,  3'ou  can  get  sweetness  out  of  that  which  w^ould  oth- 
erwise irritate  and  annoy.  A  returned  missionary  told  me 
that  a  com.pan}^  of  adventurers  rowing  up  the  Ganges  were 
stung  to  death  by  flies  that  infest  that  region  at  certain 


E VERY-DAY  liELWION.  17 

seasons.  I  have  seen  the  earth  strewed  with  the  carcasses 
of  men  slain  by  insect  annoyances.  The  only  way  to  get 
prepared  for  the  great  troubles  of  life  is  to  conquer  these 
small  troubles.  "What  would  you  say  of  a  soldier  who  re- 
fused to  load  his  gun,  or  to  go  into  the  conflict  because  it 
was  only  a  skirmish,  saying,  "I  am  not  going  to  expend 
my  ammunition  on  a  skirmish ;  wait  until  there  comes  a 
general  engagement,  and  then  you  will  see  how  courageous 
I  am,  and  what  battling  I  will  do."  The  general  would 
say  to  such  a  man,  "If  you  are  not  faithful  in  a  skirmish, 
you  would  be  nothing  in  a  general  engagement."  And  I 
have  to  tell  you,  0  Christian  men,  if  you  can  not  apply 
the  principles  of  Christ's  religion  on  a  small  scale,  you  will 
never  be  able  to  a})ply  them  on  a  large  scale.  If  you  can 
not  successfully  contend  against  these  small  sorrows  that 
come  down  single-handed,  what  will  you  do  when  the 
greater  disasters  of  life  come  down  with  thundering  artil- 
lery, rolling  over  your  soul? 

Again,  we  must  bring  the  religion  of  Chiist  into  our 
every-day  blessings.  When  the  autumn  conies,  and  the  har- 
vests are  in,  and  the  governors  make  proclamation,  we  as- 
semble in  churches,  and  we  are  very  thankful.  But  every 
day  ought  to  be  a  thanksgiving-day.  "We  do  not  recog- 
nize the  common  mercies  of  life.  We  have  to  see  a  blind 
man  led  by  his  dog  before  we  begin  to  bethink  ourselves 
of  what  a  grand  thing  it  is  to  have  eye-sight.  We  have  to 
see  some  one  afflicted  with  St.  "Vitus's  dance  before  we  are 
ready  to  thank  God  for  the  control  of  our  ph^^sical  ener- 
gies. We  have  to  see  some  wounded  man  hobbling  on  his 
crutch,  or  with  his  empty  coat-sleeve  pinned  up,  before  we 
learn  to  think  what  a  grand  thing  God  did  for  us  when  he 
gave  us  healthy  use  of  our  limbs.     We  are  so  stupid  that 


18  E  VER  YD  A  Y  RELIGION. 

nothing  but  tlie  misfortunes  of  others  can  rouse  us  up  to 
our  blessings.  As  the  ox  grazes  in  the  pasture  up  to  its 
eyes  in  clover,  yet  never  thinking  who  makes  the  clover, 
and  as  the  bird  picks  up  the  worm  from  the  furrow,  not 
knowing  that  it  is  God  who  makes  every  thing,  from  the 
animalcula  m  the  sod  to  the  seraph  on  the  throne,  so  we 
go  on  eating,  drinking,  and  enjoying,  but  never  thanking, 
or  seldom  thanking;  or,  if  thanking  at  all,  with  only  half 
a  heart. 

I  compared  our  indifference  to  the  brute ;  but  perhaps  I 
■wronged  the  brute.  I  do  not  know  but  that,  among  its 
other  instincts,  it  may  have  an  instinct  by  which  it  recog- 
nizes the  Divine  hand  that  feeds  it.  I  do  not  know  but 
that  God  is,  through  it,  holding  communication  with  what 
\ve  call  "  irrational  creation."  The  cow  that  stands  at 
this  hour  under  the  willow  by  the  water-course,  chewing 
its  cud,  holes  very  thankful ;  and  who  can  tell  how  much 
a  bird  means  by  its  song  ?  The  aroma  of  the  flowers  smells 
like  incense,  and  the  mist  arising  from  the  river  looks  like 
the  smoke  of  a  morning  sacrifice.  Oh  that  we  were  as  re- 
sponsive! Yet  who  thanks  God  for  the  water  that  gushes 
np  in  the  well,  and  that  foams  in  the  cascade,  and  that 
laughs  over  the  rocks,  and  that  patters  in  the  showers,  and 
that  claps  its  hands  in  the  sea?  Who  thanks  God  for  the 
air,  the  fountain  of  life,  the  bridge  of  sunbeams,  the  path 
of  sound,  the  great  fan  on  a  hot  summer's  day  ?  Who 
thanks  God  for  this  wonderful  physical  organism  —  this 
sweep  of  the  vision — this  chime  of  harmony  struck  into  the 
ear — this  soft  tread  of  a  mj^riad  delights  over  the  nervous 
tissue — this  rolling  of  the  crimson  tide  through  artery  and 
vein — this  drumming  of  the  heart  on  our  march  to  immor- 
tality ?     We  take  all  these  things  as  a  matter  of  course. 


EVERYDAY  ItELIUIOX.  19 

But  suppose  God  should  wididraw  these  common  bless- 
ings !  Your  body  would  become  an  Inquisition  of  tort- 
ui'e,  the  cloud  would  refuse  rain,  every  green  thing  would 
crumple  up,  and  the  earth  would  crack  open  under  your 
feet.  The  air  would  cease  its  healthful  circulation,  pesti- 
lence would  swoop,  and  every  house  would  become  a  place 
of  skulls.  Streams  would  first  swim  with  vermin,  and 
then  dry  up  ;  and  thirst,  and  hunger,  and  anguish,  and  de- 
spair would  lift  their  sceptres.  .  Oh,  compare  such  a  life  as 
that  with  the  life  you  live  this  morning  with  your  fam- 
ilies about  you  !  Is  it  not  time  that,  with  every  word  of 
our  lips  and  with  every  action  of  our  life,  we  began  to 
acknowledge  these  every-day  mercies?  "Whether  ye  eat 
or  drink,  or  whatsoever  ye  do,  do  all  to  the  glory  of  God." 
Do  I  address  a  man  or  a  woman  this  morning  who  has 
not  rendered  to  God  one  single  offering  of  thanks  ? 

I  was  preaching  one  Thanksgiving-day,  and  announced 
my  text :  "  Oh,  give  thanks  unto  the  Lord  ;  for  he  is  good  ; 
for  his  mercy  endureth  forever."  I  do  not  know  whether 
there  was  any  blessing  on  the  sermon  or  not ;  but  the  text 
went  straight  to  a  young  man's  heart  who  sits  in  this  as- 
sembly to-day.  lie  said  to  himself,  as  I  read  the  text, 
"  'Oh,  give  thanks  unto  the  Lord ;  for  he  is  good — '  Why, 
I  have  never  rendered  him  any  thanks.  Oh,  w'hat  an  in- 
grate  I  have  been  !"  Can  it  be,  my  brother,  that  you  have 
been  fed  by  the  good  hand  of  God  all  these  days — that  you 
have  had  clothing  and  shelter  and  all  beneficent  surround- 
ings, and  yet  have  never  ofiered  3^our  heart  to  God?  Oh, 
let  a  sense  of  the  Divine  goodness  shown  you  in  the  every- 
day blessings  melt  your  heart ;  and  if  you  have  never  be- 
fore uttered  one  earnest  note  of  thanksgiving,  let  this  be 
the  day  which  shall  hear  your  song.     What  I  say  to  one, 


20  SVUIiY-DAY  MELIGIUX. 

I  say  to  all  of  this  audience.  Take  this  practical  religion 
I  have  recommended  into  your  evcry-day  life.  Make  ev- 
ery day  a  Sabbath,  and  ever}'-  meal  a  sacrament,  and  ev- 
ery room  you  enter  a  Holy  of  Holies.  We  all  have  work 
to  do  ;  let  us  be  willing  to  do  it.  We  all  have  sorrows  to 
bear;  let  us  cheerfully  bear  them.  We  all  have  battles  to 
fight;  let  us  courageously  fight  them.  If  you  want  to  die 
right,  you  must  live  right.  Negligence  and  indolence  will 
win  the  hiss  of  everlasting  scorn,  while  faithfulness  will 
gather  its  gailands,  and  wave  its  sceptre,  and  sit  upon  its 
throne,  long  after  this  earth  has  put  on  ashes,  and  eternal 
ages  have  begun  their  march.  You  go  home  to-day,  and 
attend  to  your  little  sphere  of  duties.  I  will  go  home,  ahd 
attend  to  my  little  sphere  of  duties.  Every  one  in  his 
own  place.  So  our  every  step  in  life  shall  be  a  triumphal 
march,  and  the  humblest  footstool  on  which  we  are  called 
to  sit  will  be  a  conqueror's  throne. 


LIFE  AT  HOME.  21 


LIFE  AT  HOME. 

"Let  them  learn  first  to  show  piety  at  home." — 1  Timothy  v.,  4. 

A  CHURCH  within  a  church,  a  republic  within  a  re- 
public, a  world  within  a  woi'ld,  is  spelled  by  four  let- 
tei's — Home!  If  things  go  right  there,  they  go  right  ev- 
erywhere; if  things  go  wrong  there,  they  go  wrong  every- 
where. Tlie  door-sill  of  the  dwelling-house  is  the  founda- 
tion of  Church  and  State.  A  man  never  gets  higher  than 
his  own  garret  or  lower  than  his  own  cellar.  In  other 
words,  domestic  life  overarches  and  undergirds  all  other 
life.  The  highest  house  of  Congress  is  the  domestic  circle ; 
the  rocking-chair  in  the  nursery  is  higher  than  a  throne. 
George  Washington  commanded  the  forces  of  the  United 
States,  but  Mary  Washington  commanded  George.  Chrys- 
ostom's  mother  made  his  pen  for  him.  If  a  man  should 
start  out  and  run  seventy  years  in  a  straight  line,  he  could 
not  get  out  from  under  the  shadow  of  his  own  mantel-piece. 
I  therefore  talk  to  you  this  morning  about  a  matter  of 
infinite  and  eternal  moment  when  I  speak  of  your  home. 

As  individuals  we  arc  fragments.  God  makes  the  race 
in  parts,  and  then  he  gradually  puts  us  together.  What 
I  lack,  you  make  up;  what  you  lack,  I  make  up;  our  de- 
ficits and  surpluses  of  character  being  the  cog-wheels  in  the 
great  social  mechanism.  One  person  has  the  patience,  an- 
other has  the  courage,  another  has  the  placidit}',  another 
has  the  enthusiasm:  that  which  is  lacking  in  one  is  made 
up  by  another,  or  made  up  by  all.     Buffaloes  in  herds, 


22  r^IFE  AT  HOME. 

grouse  in  broods,  quails  in  flocks,  the  human  race  in  circles. 
God  has  most  beautifully  arranged  this.  It  is  in  this  way 
that  he  balances  society ;  this  conservative  and  that  radical 
keeping  things  even.  Every  ship  must  have  its  mast,  cut- 
water, taffrail,  ballast.  Thank  God,  then,  for  Princeton 
and  Andover,  for  the  opposites.  I  have  no  more  right  to 
blame  a  man  for  being  different  from  me  than  a  driving- 
wheel  has  a  rioht  to  blame  the  iron  shaft  that  holds  it  to 
the  centre.  John  Wesley  balances  Calvin's  Institutes.  A 
cold  thinker  gives  to  Scotland  the  strong  bones  of  theology : 
Dr.  Guthrie  clothes  them  with  a  throbbing  heart  and  warm 
flesh.  The  difficulty  is  that  we  are  not  satisfied  with  just 
the  work  that  God  has  given  us  to  do.  The  water-wheel 
wants  to  come  inside  the  mill  and  grind  the  grist,  and  the 
hopper  wants  to  go  out  and  dabble  in  the  water.  Our  use- 
fulness and  the  welftire  of  society  depend  upon  our  staying 
in  just  the  place  that  God  has  put  us,  or  intended  we  should 
occupy. 

For  more  compactness,  and  that  we  may  be  more  use- 
ful, we  are  gathered  in  still  smaller  circles  in  the  home 
group.  And  there  you  have  the  same  varieties  again: 
brothers,  sisters,  husband,  and  wife;  all  different  in  tem- 
peraments and  tastes.  It  is  fortunate  that  it  should  be  so. 
If  the  husband  be  all  impulse,  the  wife  must  be  all  pru- 
dence. If  one  sister  be  sanguine  in  her  temperament,  the 
other  must  be  lymphatic.  Mary  and  Martha  are  necessi- 
ties. There  will  be  no  dinner  for  Christ  if  there  be  no 
Martha;  there  will  be  no  audience  for  Jesus  if  there  be 
no  Mary.  The  home  organization  is  most  beautifully  con- 
structed. Eden  has  gone ;  the  bowers  are  all  broken  down  ; 
the  animals  that  Adam  stroked  with  his  hand  that  morning 
when  they  came  up  to  get  their  names  have  since  shot 


LIFE  AT  HOMK.  23 

forth  tnsk  and  sting,  and  growled  panther  at  panther;  and, 
mid-air,  iron  beaks  plunge  till  with  clotted  wing  and  eye- 
less sockets  the  twain  come  whirling  down  from  under  the 
sun  in  blood  and  fire.  Eden  has  gone,  but  there  is  just 
one  little  fragment  left.  It  floated  down  on  the  river  Ilid- 
dekel  out  of  Paradise.  It  is  the  mai'riage  institution.  It 
does  not,  as  at  the  beginning,  take  away  from  man  a  rib. 
Now  it  is  an  addition  of  ribs. 

This  institution  of  marriage  has  been  defamed  in  our 
day.  Socialism,  and  polygamy,  and  Mormonism,  and  the 
most  damnable  of  all  things,  free-lovism,  have  been  trying 
to  turn  this  earth  into  a  Turkish  harem  or  a  great  Salt 
Lake  Cit}^  While  the  pulpits  have  been  comparatively 
silent,  novels — their  cheapness  only  equaled  by  their  nasti- 
ness — are  trying  to  educate,  have  taken  upon  themselves 
to  educate,  this  nation  in  regard  to  holy  marriage,  which 
makes  or  breaks  for  time  and  eternity.  Oh,  this  is  not  a 
mere  question  of  residence  or  wardrobe!  It  is  a  question 
charged  with  gigantic  joy  or  sorrow,  with  heaven  or  hell. 
Alas  for  this  new  dispensation  of  George  Sands!  Alas 
for  this  minsrling  of  the  nip-htshade  with  the  marriasfe  2;ar- 
lands !  Alas  for  the  venom  of  adders  spit  into  the  tank- 
ards! Alas  for  the  white  frosts  of  eternal  death  that  kill 
the  orange-blossoms!  The  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  is  to  as- 
sert what  is  right  and  to  assert  what  is  wrong.  Attempt  has 
been  made  to  take  the  marriage  institution,  which  was  in- 
tended for  the  happiness  and  elevation  of  the  race,  and  make 
it  a  mere  commercial  enterprise;  an  exchange  of  houses  and 
lands  and  equipage;  a  business  partnership  of  two  stuffed 
up  with  the  stoiies  of  romance  and  knight-errantry,  and 
unfaithfulness  and  feminine  angelhood.  The  two  after 
a  while  have  roused  up  to  find  that,  instead  of  the  paradise 


24  LIFE  AT  HOME. 

they  dreamed  of,  they  have  got  nothing  but  a  Van  Am- 
burgh's  menagerie,  filled  with  tigers  and  wild  cats.  Eighty 
thousand  divorces  in  Paris  in  one  year  preceded  the  worst 
revolution  that  France  ever  saw.  It  was  only  the  first 
course  in  that  banquet  of  hell ;  and  I  tell  you  what  you 
know  as  well  as  I  do,  that  wrong  notions  on  the  subject  of 
Christian  marriage  are  the  cause  at  this  day  of  more  moral 
outrage  before  God  and  man  than  any  other  cause. 

There  are  some  things  that  I  want  to  bring  before  you. 
I  know  there  are  those  of  you  who  have  had  homes  set 
up  for  a  great  many  years ;  and,  then,  there  are  those 
here  who  have  just  established  their  home.  They  have 
only  been  in  it  a  few  months  or  a  few  years.  Then, 
there  are  those  who  will,  after  a  while,  set  up  for  them- 
selves a  home,  and  it  is  right  that  I  should  speak  out  upon 
these  themes. 

My  first  counsel  to  you  is,  have  Jesus  in  your  new  home, 
if  it  be  a  new  home;  and  let  him  who  was  a  guest  at 
Bethany  be  in  your  household :  let  the  divine  blessing 
drop  upon  your  every  hope  and  plan  and  expectation. 
Those  young  people  who  begin  with  God  end  with  heaven. 
Have  on  your  right  hand  the  engagement  ring  of  the  Di- 
vine affection.  If  one  of  3^on  be  a  Christian,  let  that  one 
take  the  Bible  and  read  a  few  verses  iu  the  evening-time, 
and  then  kneel  down  and  commend  yourselves  to  him  who 
setteth  the  solitary  in  families.  I  want  to  tell  you  that 
the  destroying  angel  passes  by  without  touching  or  enter- 
ing the  door-post  sprinkled  with  blood  of  the  everlasting 
covenant.  Why  is  it  that  in  some  families  they  never 
get  along,  and  in  others  they  alwaj's  get  along  well?  I 
have  watched  such  cases,  and  have  come  to  a  conclusion. 
In  the  first  instance,  nothing  seemed  to  go  pleasantly,  and 


LIFE  AT  HOME.  25 

after  a  while  there  came  devastation,  domestic  disaster,  or 
estrangement.  Why  ?  They  started  wrong.  In  the  other 
case,  although  there  were  hardships  and  trials  and  some 
things  that  had  to  be  explained,  still  things  went  on  pleas- 
antly until  the  very  last.     Why?     They  started  right. 

My  second  advice  to  you  in  your  home  is,  to  exei'cise  to 
the  very  last  possibility  of  your  nature  tlie  law  of  forhear- 
ance.  Prayers  in  the  household  will  not  make  up  for 
every  thing.  Some  of  the  best  people  in  the  world  are  the 
hardest  to  get  along  with.  There  are  people  who  stand  up 
in  prayer-meetings  and  pray  like  angels,  who  at  home  are 
uncompromising  and  cranky.  You  may  not  have  every 
thing  just  as  you  want  it.  Sometimes  it  will  be  the  duty 
of  the  husband  and  sometimes  of  the  wife  to  yield ;  but 
both  stand  punctiliously  on  your  rights,  and  you  will  have 
a  Waterloo  with  no  Bliicher  coming  up  at  night-fall  to  de- 
cide the  conflict. 

Never  be  ashamed  to  apologize  when  3'ou  have  done 
wrong  in  domestic  affairs.  Let  that  be  a  law  of  your 
household.  The  best  thing  I  ever  heard  of  my  grand- 
father, whom  I  never  saw,  was  this:  that  once  having  un- 
righteously rebuked  one  of  his  children,  he  himself  having 
lost  his  patience,  and,  perhaps,  having  been  misinformed  of 
the  child's  doings,  found  out  his  mistake,  and  in  the  even- 
ing of  the  same  day  gathered  all  his  family  together,  and 
said,  "Now,  I  have  one  explanation  to  make,  and  one 
thing  to  say.  Thomas,  this  morning  I  rebuked  you  very 
unfairly.  I  am  very  sorry  for  it.  I  rebuked  you  in  the 
presence  of  the  whole  family,  and  now  I  ask  your  forgive- 
ness in  their  presence."  It  must  have  taken  some  courage 
to  do  that.  It  was  right,  was  it  not?  Never  be  ashamed 
to  apologize  for  domestic  inaccuracj-.    Find  out  the  points; 

9 


26  LIFE  AT  HOME. 

what  are  the  v/eak  points,  if  I  may  call  them  so,  of  your 
companion,  and  then  stand  aloof  from  ihcm.  Do  not  carry 
the  fire  of  your  temper  too  near  the  gunpowder.  If  the 
wife  be  easily  fretted  by  disorder  in  the  household,  let  the 
husband  be  careful  where  he  throws  his  slippers.  If  the 
husband  come  home  from  the  store  with  his  patience  all 
exhausted,  do  not  let  the  wife  unnecessarily  cross  his  tem- 
per; but  both  stand  up  for  your  rights,  and  I  will  promise 
the  everlasting  sound  of  the  war-whoop.  Your  life  will 
be  spent  in  making-up,  and  marriage  will  be  to  you  an  un- 
mitigated curse.     Cowper  said, 

"  Tlie  kindest  and  the  happiest  pair 
Will  find  occasion  to  forbear; 
And  something,  every  day  they  live, 
To  pity,  and  perhaps  forgive. " 

I  advise,  also,  that  you  make  your  cliitf  pleasure  circle 
around  about  thai  home.  It  is  unfortunate  when  it  is  other- 
wise. If  the  husband  spend  the  most  of  his  nights  away 
from  home,  of  choice,  and  not  of  necessity,  he  is  not  the 
head  of  the  household ;  he  is  only  the  cashier.  If  the 
wife  throw  the  cares  of  the  household  into  the  servant's 
lap,  and  then  spend  five  nights  of  the  week  at  the  opera  or 
theatre,  she  may  clothe  her  children  with  satins  and  laces 
and  ribbons  that  would  confound  a  French  milliner,  but 
they  are  orphans.  Oh,  it  is  sad  when  a  child  has  no  one 
to  say  its  prayers  to  because  mother  has  gone  off  to  the 
evening  entertainment!  In  India  they  bring  children  and 
throw  them  to  the  crocodiles,  and  it  seems  very  cruel;  but 
the  jaws  of  New  York  and  Brooklyn  dissipation  are  swal- 
lowing down  more  little  children  to-day  than  all  the  mon- 
sters that  ever  crawled  upon  the  banks  of  the  Ganges ! 


LIFE  AT  IIOME.  27 

I  have  seen  the  sorrow  of  a  godless  mother  on  the  death 
of  a  child  she  had  neglected.  It  was  not  so  much  grief 
that  she  felt  from  the  fact  that  the  child  was  dead  as  the 
fact  that  she  had  neglected  it.  She  said,  "If  I  had  only 
watched  over  and  cared  for  the  child,  I  know  God  would 
not  have  taken  it."  The  tears  came  not:  it  was  a  dry, 
blistering  tempest  —  a  scorching  simoom  of  the  desert. 
When  she  wrung  her  hands,  it  seemed  as  if  she  would 
twist  her  fingers  fn^ii  their  sockets;  when  she  seized  her 
hair,  it  seemed  as  if  she  had,  in  wild  terror,  grasped  a  coil- 
ing serpent  with  her  right  hand.  No  teai's!  Comrades 
of  the  little  one  came  in  and  wept  over  the  coffin ;  neigh- 
bors came  in,  and  the  moment  the}'  saw  the  still  face  of 
the  child  the  shower  broke.  No  tears  for  her.  God  gives 
tears  as  the  summer  rain  to  the  })arched  soul ;  but  in  all 
the  universe  the  driest  and  hottest,  the  most  scorching 
and  consuming  thing  is  a  mother's  heart  if  she  has  neg- 
lected her  child,  when  once  it  is  dead.  God  may  forgive 
her,  but  she  will  never  forgive  herself.  The  memory  will 
sink  the  eyes  deeper  into  the  sockets,  and  pinch  the  face, 
and  whiten  the  hair,  and  eat  up  the  heart  with  vultures 
tliat  will  not  be  satisfied,  forever  plunging  deeper  their 
iron  beaks.  Oh,  you  wanderers  fiom  your  home,  go  back 
to  your  duty  !  The  brightest  flowers  in  all  the  earth  are 
those  which  grow  in  the  garden  of  a  Christian  household, 
clambering  over  the  porch  of  a  Christian  home. 

I  advise  you  also  to  cuUkute  sympathy  of  occupation. 
Sir  James  M'Intosh,  one  of  the  most  eminent  and  elegant 
men  that  ever  lived,  while  standing  at  the  ver}^  height  of 
his  eminence,  said  to  a  great  company  of  scholars,  "My 
wife  niado  me."  The  wife  ought  to  be  the  advising  part- 
ner in  Q,\-Q.\-)'  firm.     She  ought  to  be  interested  in  all  the 


28  LIFE  AT  HOME. 

losses  and  gains  of  shop  and  store.  She  ought  to  have  a 
right — she  has  a  right — to  know  every  thing.  If  a  man 
goes  into  a  business  transaction  that  lie  dare  not  tell  his 
wife  of,  you  may  depend  that  he  is  on  the  way  either  to 
bankruptcy  or  moral  ruin.  There  may  be  some  things 
which  he  does  not  wish  to  trouble  his  wife  with ;  but  if  he 
dare  not  tell  her,  he  is  on  tlie  road  to  discomfiture.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  husband  ought  to  be  sympathetic  with 
the  wife's  occupation.  It  is  no  easy  thing  to  keep  house. 
Many  a  woman  that  could  have  endured  martyrdom  as 
well  as  Margaret,  the  Scotch  girl,  has  actuallj^  been  worn 
out  by  house  management.  There  are  a  thousand  mar- 
tyrs of  the  kitchen.  It  is  very  annoying,  after  the  vexa- 
tions of  the  da}'-  around  the  stove  or  the  table,  or  in  the 
nursery  or  parlor,  to  have  the  husband  say,  "You  know 
nothing  about  trouble;  you  ought  to  be  in  the  store  half 
an  hour."  Sympathy  of  occupation !  If  the  husband's 
work  cover  him  with  the  soot  of  the  furnace,  or  the  odors 
of  leather  or  soap  factories,  let  not  the  wife  be  easily  dis- 
gusted at  the  begrimed  hands  or  unsavory  aroma.  Your 
gains  are  one,  your  interests  are  one,  3'our  losses  are  one; 
lay  hold  of  the  work  of  life  with  both  hands.  Four  hands 
to  fight  the  battles;  four  eyes  to  watch  for  the  danger; 
four  shoulders  on  which  to  carry  the  trials.  It  is  a  very 
sad  thing  when  the  painter  has  a  wife  who  does  not  like 
pictures.  It  is  a  very  sad  thing  for  a  pianist  when  she  has 
a  husband  who  does  not  like  music.  It  is  a  very  sad  thing 
wdien  a  wife  is  not  suited  unless  her  husband  has  what  is 
called  a  "  genteel  business."  So  far  as  I  understand  a  "  gen- 
teel business,"  it  is  something  to  which  a  man  goes  at  ten 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  from  which  he  comes  home  at 
two  or  three  o'clock  in  the   afternoon,  and   frets  a  large 


LIFE  AT  HOME.  29 

amount  of  money  for  doing  nothing.  That  is,  I  believe,  a 
"genteel  business;"  ami  tbei-e  has  been  many  a  wife  who 
has  made  the  mistake  of  not  being  satisfied  until  the  hus- 
band has  given  up  the  tanning  of  the  hides,  or  the  turning 
of  the  banisters,  or  the  building  of  the  walls,  and  put  him- 
self in  circles  wdiere  he  has  nothing  to  do  but  smoke  cii^ars 
and  drink  wine,  and  get  himself  into  habits  that  upset  him, 
going  down  in  the  maelstrom,  taking  his  wife  and  children 
with  him.  There  are  a  good  many  trains  running  from 
earth  to  desti'uction.  Tliej'  start  all  the  hours  of  the  day, 
and  all  the  hours  of  the  ni<>ht.     There  are  the  freight 

O  O 

trains;  they  go  veiy  slowly  and  very  heavil}' :  and  there 
are  the  accommodation  trains  going  on  toward  destruction, 
and  they  stop  Yury  often,  and  let  a  man  get  out  when  he 
wants  to.  But  genteel  idleness  is  an  express  train  :  Satan 
is  the  stoker,  and  death  is  the  engineer;  and  though  one 
may  come  out  in  front  of  it,  and  swing  the  red  flag  of 
"danger,"  or  the  lantern  of  God's  Word,  it  makes  just  one 
shot  into  perdition,  coming  down  the  embaidcmcnt  with  a 
shout  and  a  wail  and  a  sliriek — crash,  crash!  There  are 
two  classes  of  people  sure  of  destruction :  first,  those  wdio 
have  nothing  to  do;  second)}',  those  who  have  something 
to  do,  but  who  are  too  Inzy  or  too  proud  to  do  it. 

I  have  one  more  word  of  advice  to  give  to  those  who 
would  have  a  hnpp}^  home,  and  that  is,  Itt  love  preside  in  it. 
Wlien  3-our  behavior  in  the  domestic  circle  becomes  a 
mere  matter  of  calculation  ;  when  the  caress  you  give  is 
merely  tlie  result  of  deliberate  study  of  the  position  you 
occupy,  happiness  lies  stark  dead  on  the  hearth -stone. 
AVhen  the  husband's  position  as  head  of  the  household  is 
mnintaincd  by  loudness  of  voice,  by  strength  of  arm,  by 
fire  of  temper,  the  republic  of  domestic  bliss  has  become  a 


30  LIFE  AT  HOME. 

despotism  that  neither  God  nor  man  will  abide.  Ob,  ye 
who  promised  to  love  eaeh  other  at  the  altar!  how  dare 
you  commit  peijury?  Let  no  shadow  of  suspicion  come 
on  your  affection.  It  is  easier  to  kill  that  flower  than  it  is 
to  make  it  live  again.  The  blast  from  hell  that  puts  out 
that  light,  leaves  you  in  the  blackness  of  darkness  forever. 
Here  are  a  man  and  wife;  they  agree  in  nothing  else, 
but  they  agree  they  will  have  a  home.  The}^  will  have  a 
splendid  house,  and  they  think  that  if  they  have  a  house, 
they  will  have  a  home.  Architects  make  the  plan,  and 
the  mechanics  execute  it;  the  house  to  cost  one  hundred 
thousand  dollai's.  It  is  done.  The  cai'pets  are  spread  ; 
lights  are  hoisted;  curtains  are  hung;  cards  of  invitation 
sent  out.  The  horses  in  gold-plated  harness  prance  at  the 
gate;  guests  come  in  and  take  their  places;  the  flute 
sounds;  the  dancers  go  up  and  down;  and  with  one 
grand  whirl  the  wealth  and  the  fashion  and  the  mirth  of 
the  great  town  wheel  amidst  the  pictured  walls.  Ha!  this 
is  happiness.  Float  it  on  the  smoking  viands;  sound  it 
in  the  music;  whirl  it  in  the  dance;  cast  it  on  the  snow 
of  sculpture;  sound  it  up  the  brilliant  stair-wa}' ;  flash  it 
in  chandeliers!  Happiness,  indeed!  Let  us  build  on  the 
centre  of  the  parlor  floor  a  throne  to  Happiness;  let  all 
the  guests,  when  come  in,  bring  their  flowers  and  pearls 
and  diamonds,  and  throw  them  on  this  pjM'amid,  and  let 
it  be  a  throne;  and  then  let  Happiness,  the  queen,  mount 
the  throne,  and  we  will  stand  around,  and,  all  chalices  lifted, 
we  will  say,  "Drink,  O  queen!  live  forever!''  But  the 
guests  depart,  the  flutes  are  breathless,  the  last  clash  of  the 
impatient  hoofs  is  heard  in  the  distance,  and  the  twain  of 
the  household  come  back  to  see  the  Queen  of  Happiness 
on  the  throne  amidst  the  parlor  floor.     But,  alas !   as  they 


LIFE  AT  HOME.  31 

come  back,  the  flowers  have  faded,  the  sweet  odors  have 
become  the  smell  of  a  charnel-house,  and  instead  of  the 
Queen  of  Happiness  there  sits  there  the  gaunt  form  of  An- 
guish, with  bitten  lip  and  sunken  eye,  and  ashes  in  her 
hair.  The  romp  of  the  dancers  who  have  left  seems  rum- 
bling yet,  like  jarring  thunders  that  quake  the  floor  and 
rattle  the  glasses  of  the  feast  rim  to  rim.  The  spilled  wine 
on  the  floor  turns  into  blood.  The  wreaths  of  plush  have 
become  wriggling  reptiles.  Terrors  catch  tangled  in  the 
canopy  that  overhangs  the  couch.  A  strong  gust  of  wind 
comes  through  the  hall  and  the  drawing-room  and  the  bed- 
chamber, in  which  all  the  lights  go  out.  And  from  the 
lips  of  the  wine-beakers  come  the  words,  "  Happiness  is  not 
in  us  !"  And  the  arches  respond,  "It  is  not  in  us  !"  And 
the  silenced  instruments  of  music,  thrummed  on  by  invisi- 
ble fingers,  answer,  "Happiness  is  not  in  us!"  And  the 
frozen  lips  of  Anguish  break  open,  and,  seated  on  the 
throne  of  wilted  flowers,  she  strikes  her  bony  hands  to- 
gether, and  groans,  "  It  is  not  in  me !" 

That  very  night  a  clerk  with  a  salary  of  a  thousand 
dollars  a  year — only  one  thousand — goes  to  his  home,  set 
up  three  months  ago,  just  after  the  marriage-day.  Love 
meets  him  at  the  door;  love  sits  with  him  at  the  table; 
love  talks  over  the  work  of  the  day;  love  takes  down  the 
Bible,  and  reads  of  Ilim  who  came  our  souls  to  save;  and 
they  kneel,  and  while  they  are  kneeling — right  in  that 
plain  room,  on  that  plain  carpet — the  angels  of  God  build 
a  throne,  not  out  of  flowers  that  perish  and  fade  away,  but 
out  of  garlands  of  heaven,  wreath  on  top  of  wreath,  ama- 
ranth on  amaranth,  until  the  throne  is  done.  Then  the 
harps  of  God  sounded,  and  suddenly  there  appeared  one 
who  mounted  the  throne,  with  eye  so  bright  and  brow  so 


32  LIFE  AT  HOME. 

fair  that  the  twain  knew  it  was  Christian  Love.  And  they 
knelt  at  the  foot  of  the  throne,  and,  putting  one  hand  on 
each  head,  she  blessed  them,  and  said,  "Happiness  is  with 
me!"  And  that  throne  of  celestial  bloom  withered  not 
with  the  passing  years ;  and  the  queen  left  not  the  throne 
till  one  day  the  married  pair  felt  stricken  in  years — felt 
themselves  called  away,  and  knew  not  which  way  to  go, 
and  the  queen  bounded  from  the  throne,  and  said,  "  Fol- 
low me,  and  I  will  show  you  the  way  up  to  the  realm  of 
everlasting  love."  And  so  they  went  up  to  sing  songs  of 
love,  and  walk  on  pavements  of  love,  and  to  live  together 
in  mansions  of  love,  and  to  rejoice  forever  in  the  truth  that 
God  is  love. 


THE  OLD  CORN  OF  CANAAN.  33 


THE  OLD  CORN  OF  CANAAN. 

"And  the  manna  ceased  on  the  morrow  after  they  had  eaten  of  the  old 
corn  of  the  land." — Joshua  y.,  12. 

ONLY  those  who  have  had  something  to  do  with  the 
commissariat  of  an  army  know  what  a  job  it  is  to 
feed  and  clothe  five  or  six  hundred  thousand  men.  Well, 
there  is  such  a  host  as  that  marching  across  the  desert. 
They  are  cut  off  from  all  army  supplies.  There  are  no 
rail  trains  bringing  down  food  or  blankets.  Shall  they  all 
perish?  No.  The  Lord  comes  fi'om  heaven  to  the  rescue, 
and  he  touches  the  shoes  and  the  coats  which  in  a  year  or 
two  would  have  been  worn  to  rags  and  tatters,  and  they 
become  storm-proof  and  time-proof,  so  that,  after  forty  years 
of  wearing,  the  coats  and  the  shoes  are  as  good  as  new. 
Besides  that,  every  morning  there  is  a  shower  of  bread, 
not  sour  and  soggy,  for  the  rising  of  that  bread  is  made  in 
heaven,  and  celestial  fingers  have  mixed  it,  and  rolled  it 
into  balls,  light,  flaky,  and  sweet,  as  though  they  were  the 
crumbs  thrown  out  from  a  heavenly  banquet.  Two  batches 
of  bread  made  every  da}^  in  the  upper  mansion — one  for 
those  who  sit  at  the  table  with  the  King,  and  the  other  for 
the  marching  Israelites  in  the  wilderness.  I  do  not  very 
much  pity  the  Israelites  for  the  fact  that  they  had  only 
manna  to  eat.  It  was,  I  suppose,  the  best  food  ever  pro- 
vided. I  know  that  the  ravens  brought  food  to  hungry 
Elijah  ;  but  I  should  not  so  well  have  liked  those  black 
waiters,     liather  would  I  have  the  fare  that  came  down 

2* 


3-i  THE  OLD   COllN  OF  CANAAN. 

every  morning  in  buckets  of  dew — clean,  sweet,  God-pro- 
vided edibles.  But  now  the  Israelites  have  taken  their 
last  bit  of  it  in  their  fingers,  and  put  the  last  delicate  morsel 
of  it  to  their  lips.  They  look  out,  and  there  is  no  manna. 
Why  this  cessation  of  heavenly  supply  ?  It  was  because 
the  Israelites  had  arrived  in  Canaan,  and  they  smelled  the 
breath  of  the  harvest-fields,  and  the  crowded  barns  of  the 
country  were  thrown  open  to  them.  All  the  inhabitants 
had  fled,  and  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  of  hosts  the  Israel- 
ites took  possession  of  every  thing.  Well,  the  threshing- 
floor  is  cleared,  the  corn  is  scattered  over  it,  the  oxen  are 
brought  around  in  lazy  and  perpetual  circuit  until  the  corn 
is  trampled  loose ;  then  it  is  winnowed  with  a  fan,  and  it 
is  ground  and  it  is  baked,  and,  lo !  there  is  enough  bread 
for  all  the  worn-out  host.  "And  the  manna  ceased  on  the 
morrow  after  they  had  eaten  of  the  old  corn  of  the  land." 

The  bisection  of  this  subject  leads  me,  first,  to  speak  of 
especial  relief  for  especial  emergency ;  and,  secondly,  of  the 
old  corn  of  the  Gospel  for  ordinary  circumstances. 

If  these  Israelites  crossing  the  wilderness  had  not  re- 
ceived bread  from  the  heavenly  bakeries,  there  would,  first, 
have  been  a  long  line  of  dead  children  half  buried  in  the 
sand;  then,  there  would  have  been  a  long  line  of  dead 
women  waiting  for  the  jackals ;  then,  there  would  have 
been  a  long  line  of  dead  men  unburied,  because  there  would 
have  been  no  one  to  bury  them.  It  would  have  been  told 
in  the  history  of  the  world  that  a  great  company  of  good 
people  started  out  from  Egypt  for  Canaan,  and  were  never 
heard  of,  as  thoroughly  lost  in  the  wilderness  of  sand  as 
the  City  of  Boston  and  the  President  were  lost  in  the  wilder- 
ness of  waters.  What  use  was  it  to  them  that  there  was 
plenty  of  corn  in  Canaan,  or  plenty  of  corn  in  Egypt? 


THE  OLD   CORN  OF  CANAAN.  35 

What  they  wanted  was  something  to  eat  right  there,  wliere 
there  was  not  so  much  as  a  grass-blade.  In  other  words, 
an  especial  supply  for  an  especial  emergency.  That  is 
what  some  of  you  want.  The  ordinary  comfort,  the  ordi- 
nary direction,  the  ordinary  counsel,  do  not  seem  to  meet 
your  case.  There  are  those  who  feel  that  they  must  have 
an  omnipotent  and  immediate  supply,  and  you  shall  have  it. 

Is  it  pain  and  physical  distress  through  which  you  must 
go?  Does  not  Jesus  know  all  about  pain?  Did  he  not 
suffer  it  in  the  most  sensitive  part  of  head  and  hand  and 
foot?  He  has  a  mixture  of  comfort,  one  drop  of  which 
shall  cure  the  worst  paroxysm.  It  is  the  same  grace  that 
soothed  Robert  Hall  when,  after  writhing  on  the  carpet  in 
physical  tortures,  he  cried  out,  "Oh!  I  suffered  terribly, 
but  I  didn't  cry  out  while  I  was  suffering,  did  I?  Did  I 
cry  out?"  There  is  no  such  nurse  as  Jesus — his  hand  the 
gentlest,  his  foot  the  lightest,  his  arm  the  strongest.  For 
especial  pang  especial  help. 

Is  it  approaching  sorrow?  Is  it  long,  shadowing  be- 
reavement that  you  know  is  coming,  because  the  breath  is 
short,  and  the  voice  is  faint,  and  the  cheek  is  pale?  Have 
you  been  calculating  your  capacity  or  incapacity  to  en- 
dure widowhood  or  childlessness  or  a  disbanded  home,  and 
cried,  "I  can  not  endure  it?"  Oh,  worried  soul,  you  will 
wake  up  amidst  all  your  troubles,  and  find  around  about 
you  the  sweet  consolations  of  the  Gospel  as  thickly  strewed 
as  was  the  manna  around  about  the  Israelitish  encamp- 
ment!    Especial  solace  for  especial  distress. 

Or  is  it  a  trouble  past,  yet  present?  A  silent  nursery? 
A  vacant  chair  opposite  you  at  the  table?  A  musing 
upon  a  broken  family  circle  never  again  to  be  reunited? 
A  choking  sense  of  loneliness?     A  blot  of  grief  so  large 


36  THE  OLD   CORN  OF  CANAAK 

that  it  extinguishes  the  light  of  sun,  and  puts  out  bloom 
of  flower,  and  makes  you  reckless  as  to  whether  you  live 
or  die?  Especial  comfort  for  that  especial  trial.  Your  ap- 
petite has  fluled  for  every  thing  else.  Oh,  try  a  little  of 
this  wilderness  manna:  "I  will  never  leave  thee,  I  will 
never  forsake  thee."  "Like  as  a  father  pitieth  his  chil- 
di'en,  so  the  Lord  pitieth  them  that  fear  him."  "Can  a 
woman  forget  her  sucking  child,  that  she  should  not  have 
compassion  on  the  son  of  her  womb?  yea,  they  may  for- 
get, yet  will  I  not  forget  thee." 

Or  is  it  the  grief  of  a  dissipated  companion  ?  There  are 
those  here  who  have  it,  so  I  am  not  speaking  in  the  ab- 
stract, but  to  the  point.  You  have  not  whispered  it,  per- 
haps, to  your  most  intimate  friend;  but  you  see  your  home 
going  away  gradually  from  you,  and  unless  things  change 
soon  it  will  be  entirely  destroyed.  Your  grief  was  well 
depicted  by  a  woman,  presiding  at  a  women's  meeting  last 
winter  in  Ohio,  when  her  intoxicated  husband  staggered 
up  to  the  platform,  to  her  overwhelming  mortification  and 
the  disturbance  of  the  audience,  and  she  pulled  a  protrud- 
ing bottle  from  her  husband's  pocket,  and  held  it  up  be- 
fore the  audience,  and  cried  out,  "  There  is  the  cause  of 
my  woe!  There  are  the  tears  and  the  life-blood  of  a 
drunkard's  wife!"  And  then,  looking  up  to  heaven,  she 
said,  "How  long,  0  Lord!  how  long?"  and  then,  looking 
down  to  the  audience,  cried,  "Do  you  wonder  I  feel 
strongly  on  this  subject?  Sisters,  will  you  help  me?" 
And  hundreds  of  voices  responded,  "Yes,  yes,  we  will  help 
you."  You  stand,  some  of  you,  in  such  a  tragedy  to-day. 
You  can  not  even  ask  him  to  stop  drinking.  It  makes 
him  cross,  and  he  tells  you  to  mind  your  own  business. 
Is  there  any  relief  in  such  a  case?     Not  such  as  is  found 


THE  OLD   CO/iX  OF  CAXAAX.  37 

ill  the  rigmarole  of  comfort  ordinarily  given  in  such  cases. 
But  there  is  a  relief  that  drops  in  manna  from  the  throne 
of  God.  Oh,  lift  up  your  lacerated  soul  in  prayer,  and 
you  will  get  omnipotent  comfort!  I  do  not  know  in  what 
words  the  soothing  influence  may  come,  but  I  know  that 
for  especial  grief  there  is  especial  deliverance.  I  give  you 
two  or  three  passages;  try  them  on  ;  take  that  which  best 
iits  your  soul:  "Whom  the  Lord  loveth  he  chasteneth." 
"All  things  work  together  for  good  to  those  who  love 
God."  "  Weeping  may  endure  for  a  night,  but  joy  cometh 
in  the  morning."  I  know  there  are  those  who,  when  they 
try  to  comfort  people,  always  bring  the  same  stale  senti- 
ment about  the  usefulness  of  trial.  Instead  of  bringing  a 
new  plaster  for  a  new  wound,  and  fresh  manna  for  fresh 
hunger,  they  rummage  their  haversack  to  find  some  crumb 
of  old  consolation,  when  from  horizon  to  horizon  the 
ground  is  white  with  the  new-fallen  manna  of  God's  help 
not  five  minutes  old  ! 

But  after  fourteen  thousand  six  hundred  consecutive 
days  of  falling  maima — Sundays  excepted  —  the  manna 
ceased.  Some  of  them  were  glad  of  it.  You  know  they 
had  complained  to  their  leader,  and  wondered  that  they 
had  to  eat  manna  instead  of  onions.  Now  the  fare  is 
changed.  Those  people  in  that  army  under  forty  years 
of  age  had  never  seen  a  corn-field,  and  now,  when  they 
hear  the  leaves  rustling;  and  see  the  tassels  wavinsr  and  the 
billows  of  green  flowing  over  the  plain  as  the  wind  touch- 
ed tliem,  it  must  have  been  a  new  and  lively  sensation. 
"  Corn  !"  cried  the  old  man,  as  he  husked  an  ear.  "  Corn  !" 
cried  the  children,  as  they  counted  the  shining  grains. 
"Corn!"  shouted  the  vanguard  of  the  host,  as  they  burst 
open  the  granaries  of  the  affrighted  population,  the  grana- 


38  THE  OLD   CORN  OF  CANAAN. 

ries  tluit  had  been  left  in  tlie  possession  of  the  victorious 
Israelites.  Then  the  fire  was  kindled,  and  the  ears  of  corn 
were  thrust  into  it,  and,  fresh  and  crisp  and  tender,  were 
devoured  of  the  hungry  victors;  and  bread  was  prepared, 
and  many  things  that  can  be  made  out  of  flour  regaled 
the  appetites  that  had  been  sharpened  by  the  long  march. 
"And  the  manna  ceased  on  the  morrow  after  they  had 
eaten  of  the  old  corn  of  the  land."  '^ 

Blessed  be  God,  we  stand  in  just  such  a  field  to-day,  the 
luxuriant  grain  coming  above  the  girdle,  the  air  full  of  the 
odors  of  the  ripe  old  corn  of  the  Gospel  Canaan.  "Oh!" 
you  say,  "the  fare  is  too  plain."  Then  I  remember  you 
will  soon  get  tired  of  a  fanciful  diet.  While  I  was  in 
Paris,  I  liked  for  a  while  the  rare  and  exquisite  cookery; 
but  I  soon  wished  I  was  home  again,  and  had  the  plain 
fare  of  my  native  land.  So  it  is  a  fact  that  we  soon  wearj 
of  the  sirups  and  the  custards  and  the  whipped  foam  of 
fanciful  religionists,  and  we  cry,  "Give  us  plain  bread 
made  out  of  the  old  corn  of  the  Gospel  Canaan."  That  is 
the  only  food  that  can  quell  the  soul's  hunger. 

There  are  men  here  this  morning  who  hardly  know 
what  is  the  matter  with  them.  They  have  tried  to  get  to- 
gether a  fortune  and  larger  account  at  the  bank,  and  to  get 
investments  yielding  larger  percentages.  They  are  trying 
to  satisfy  their  soul  with  a  diet  of  greenbacks  and  Govern- 
ment securities.  There  are  others  here  who  have  been 
trying  to  get  flimous,  and  have  succeeded  to  a  greater  or 
less  extent ;  and  they  have  been  trying  to  satisfy  their 
soul  with  the  chopped  feed  of  magazines  and  newspapers. 
All  these  men  are  no  more  happy  now  than  before  they 
made  the  first  thousand  dollars ;  no  more  happy  now  than 
when  for  the  first  time  they  saw  their  names  favorably 


THE  OLD  CORN  OF  CANAAK  39 

mentioned.  Tbey  can  not  analj^ze  or  define  their  feelings ; 
but  I  will  toll  them  what  is  the  matter — they  are  hungry 
for  the  old  corn  of  the  Gospel.  Tliat  you  must  have,  or 
be  pinched,  and  wan,  and  wasted,  and  hollow-eyed,  and 
shriveled  up  with  an  eternity  of  famine. 

The  infidel  scientists  of  this  day  are  offering  us  a  differ- 
ent kind  of  soul  food;  but  they  are,  of  all  men,  the  most 
miserable.  I  have  known  many  of  them ;  but  I  never 
knew  one  of  them  who  came  wilhin  a  thousand  miles  of 
being  happy.  The  great  John  Stuart  Mill  provided  for 
himself  a  new  kind  of  porridge ;  but  yet,  when  he  comes  to 
die,  he  acknowledges  that  his  philosophy  never  gave  him 
any  comfort  in  days  of  bereavement,  and  in  a  roundabout 
way  he  admits  that  his  life  was  a  failure.  So  it  is  with  all 
infidel  scientists.  They  are  trying  to  live  on  telescopes 
arid  crucibles  and  protoplasms,  and  they  charge  us  with 
cant,  not  realizing  that  there  is  no  such  intolerable  cant  in 
all  the  world  as  this  perpetual  talk  we  are  hearing  about 
"positive  philosophy,"  and  "the  absolute,"  and  "the  great 
to  be,"  and  "the  everlasting  no,"  and  "the  higher  unity," 
and  "the  latent  potentialities,"  and  "the  cathedral  of  the 
immensities."  I  have  been  translating  what  these  men 
have  been  writing,  and  I  have  been  translating  what  they 
have  been  doing,  and  I  will  tell  you  what  it  all  means — 
it  means  that  they  want  to  kill  God !  And  my  only  won- 
der is  that  God  has  not  killed  them.  I  have,  in  other 
days,  tasted  of  their  confections,  and  I  come  back  and  tell 
you  to-day  that  there  is  no  nutriment  or  life  or  health  in 
any  thing  but  the  bread  made  out  of  the  old  corn  of  the 
Gospel.  What  do  I  mean  by  that?  I  mean  that  Clirist  is 
the  bread  of  life,  and  taking  him,  you  live  and  live  forever. 

But,  you  say,  corn  is  of  but  little  practical  use  unless  it 


40  THE  OLD   CORX  OF  CANAAN. 

is  threshed  and  ground  and  baked.  I  answer,  this  Gospel 
corn  has  gone  through  that  process.  When  on  Calvary 
all  the  hoofs  of  human  scorn  came  down  on  the  heart  of 
Christ,  and  all  the  flails  of  Satanic  fury  beat  him  long  and 
fiTst,  was  not  the  corn  threshed  ?  When  the  mills  of  God's 
indignation  against  sin  caught  Christ  between  the  upper 
and  nether  rollers,  was  not  the  corn  ground?  When  Jesus 
descended  into  hell,  and  the  flames  of  the  lost  world  wrap- 
ped him  all  about,  was  not  the  corn  baked  ?  Oh  yes !  Christ 
is  ready.  His  pardon  all  ready ;  his  peace  all  ready;  every 
thing  ready  in  Christ.     Are  you  ready  for  him? 

You  say,  "That  is  such  a  simple  Gospel!"  I  know  it 
is.  You  say  you  thought  religion  was  a  strange  mixture 
of  elaborate  compounds.  No;  it  is  so  plain  that  any  abe- 
cedarian may  understand  it.  In  its  simplicity  is  its  power. 
If  you  could,  this  morning,  realize  that  Christ  died  to  save 
from  sin  and  death  and  hell,  not  only  your  minister  and 
your  neighbor  and  your  father  and  your  child,  but  you.,  it 
would  make  this  hour  like  the  judgment-day  for  agitations, 
and,  no  longer  able  to  keep  your  seat,  you  would  leap  up, 
crying,  ^^ For  me!  for  me!"  God  grant  that  you,  my 
brother,  may  see  this  Gospel  with  your  own  eyes,  and  hear 
it  with  your  own  ears,  and  feel  with  your  own  heart  that 
you  are  a  lost  soul,  but  that  Christ  comes  for  your  extrica- 
tion. Can  you  not  take  that  truth  and  digest  it,  and  make 
it  a  part  of  your  immortal  life?     It  is  only  bread. 

You  have  noticed  that  invalids  can  not  take  all  kinds  of 
food.  The  food  that  will  do  for  one  will  not  do  for  an- 
other. There  are  kinds  of  food  which  will  produce,  in 
cases  of  invalidism,  very  speedy  death.  But  you  have 
noticed  that  all  persons,  however  weak  they  may  be,  can 
take  bread.     Oh,  soul  sick  with  sin,  invalid  in  your  trans- 


rilE  OLD   COBN  OF  CANAAN.  41 

gressions,  I  think  this  Gospel  will  agree  with  you !  I 
tliiiik  if  you  can  not  take  any  thing  else,  you  can  take 
this.  Lost — found  !  Sunken — I'aised  !  Condemned — 
pardoned!  Cast  out — invited  in!  That  is  the  old  corn 
of  the  Gospel. 

You  have  often  seen  a  wheel  with  spokes  of  different 
colors,  and  when  the  wheel  was  rapidly  turned  all  the 
colors  blended  into  a  rainbow  of  exquisite  beauty.  I  wisli 
I  could,  this  morning,  take  the  peace  and  the  life  and  the 
joy  and  glory  of  Christ,  and  turn  them  before  your  soul 
with  such  speed  and  strength  that  you  would  be  enchanted 
with  the  revolving  splendors  of  that  name  which  is  above 
every  name — the  name  written  once  with  tears  of  exile 
and  in  blood  of  martyrdom,  but  written  now  in  burnished 
crown  and  lifted  sceptre  and  transangelic  throne. 

There  is  another  characteristic  about  bread,  and  that  is, 
you  never  get  tired  of  it.  There  are  people  here  seventy 
years  of  age  who  find  it  just  as  appropriate  for  their  ap- 
petite as  they  did  when,  in  boyhood,  their  mother  cut  a 
slice  of  it  clear  around  the  loaf.  You  have  not  got  tired 
of  bread,  and  that  is  a  characteristic  of  the  Gospel.  Old 
Christian  man,  are  you  tired  of  Jesus?  If  so,  let  us  take 
his  name  out  of  our  Bible,  and  let  us  with  pen  and  ink 
erase  that  name  wherever  we  see  it.  Let  us  cast  it  out  of 
our  hymnology,  and  let  "  There  is  a  Fountain  "  and  "  Rock 
of  Ages"  go  into  forgetful ness.  Let  us  tear  down  the 
communion-table  where  we  celebrate  his  love.  Let  us 
dash  down  the  baptismal  bowl  wherp  we  were  consecrated 
to  him.  Let  us  hurl  Jesus  from  our  heart,  and  ask  some 
other  hero  to  come  in.  Let  us  say,  "Go  away,  Jesus;  I 
want  another  companion,  another  friend,  than  thou  art." 
Could  you  do  it?     The  years  of  your  past  life,  aged  man, 


42  THE  OLD   CORN  OF  CANAAN. 

would  utter  a  protest  against  it,  and  the  graves  of  your 
Christian  dead  would  charge  you  with  being  an  ingrate, 
and  your  little  grandchildren  would  say,  "Grandfather, 
don't  do  that.  Jesus  is  the  one  to  whom  we  say  our 
prayers  at  night,  and  who  is  to  open  heaven  when  we  die. 
Grandfather,  don't  do  that."  Tired  of  Jesus?  The  Bur- 
gundy rose  you  pluck  from  the  garden  is  not  so  fresh  and 
fair  and  beautiful.  Tired  of  Jesus?  As  well  get  weary  of 
the  spring  morning,  and  the  voices  of  the  mountain  runnel, 
and  the  quiet  of  your  own  home,  and  the  gladness  of  your 
own  children.  Jesus  is  bread,  and  the  appetite  for  that  is 
never  obliterated. 

I  notice,  in  regard  to  this  article  of  food,  you  take  it 
three  times  a  day.  It  is  on  your  table  morning,  noon,  and 
night;  and  if  it  is  forgotten,  you  sa}^,  "Where  is  the 
bread?"  Just  so  certainly  you  need  Jesus  three  times  a 
day.  Oh,  do  not  start  out  without  him  ;  do  not  dare  to  go 
out  of  the  front  door;  do  not  dare  to  go  off  the  front  steps, 
without  first  having  communed  with  him !  Before  noon 
there  may  be  perils  that  will  destroy  body,  mind,  and  soul 
forever.  You  can  not  afford  to  do  without  him.  You 
will  during  the  day  be  amidst  sharp  hoofs  and  swift  wheels 
and  dangerous  scaffoldings  threatening  the  body,  and  traps 
for  the  soul  that  have  taken  some  who  are  more  wily  than 
you.  When  they  launch  a  ship  they  break  against  the 
side  of  it  a  bottle  of  wine.  That  is  a  sort  of  super- 
stition among  sailors.  But  oh,  on  the  launching  of  ev- 
ery day,  that  we  might  strike  against  it  at  least  one 
earnest  prayer  for  divine  protection !  That  would  not 
be  superstition;  that  would  be  Christian.  Then  at  the 
apex  of  the  day,  at  the  tiptop  of  the  hours,  equidistant 
from  morning  and  night,  look   three  ways.     Look  back- 


THE  OLD   CORN  OF  CANAAN.  43 

ward  to  the  forenoon ;  look  ahead  to  the  afternoon ;  look 
up  to  that  Saviour  who  presides  over  all.  You  want 
bread  at  noon.  You  may  find  no  place  in  which  to  kneel 
amidst  the  cotton  bales  and  the  tierces  of  rice ;  but  if  Jonah 
could  find  room  to  pray  in  the  whale's  belly,  most  cer- 
taiidy  you  will  never  be  in  such  a  crowded  place  that  you 
can  not  pray.  Bread  at  noon  !  When  the  evening  hour 
comes,  and  your  head  is  buzzing  with  the  day's  engage- 
ments, and  your  whole  nature  is  sore  from  the  abrasion  of 
rough  life,  and  you  see  a  great  many  duties  you  have  neg- 
lected, then  commune  with  Christ,  asking  his  pardon, 
thanking  him  for  his  love.  That  would  be  a  queer  even- 
ing repast  at  which  there  was  no  bread. 

This  is  the  nutriment  and  life  of  the  plain  Gospel  that 
I  commend  to  you.  I  do  not  know  how  some  of  our  min- 
isters make  it  so  intricate  and  elaborate  and  mystifying  a 
thing.  It  seems  as  if  they  had  a  sort  of  mongrelism,  in 
religion  —  part  humanitarianism,  part  spiritualism,  part 
nothingarianism ;  and  sometimes  you  think  they  are  build- 
ing their  temple  out  of  the  "Rock  of  Ages,"  but  you  find 
there  is  no  rock  in  it  at  all.  It  is  stucco.  The  Gospel  is 
plain.  It  is  bread.  There  are  no  fogs  hovering  over  this 
river  of  life.  All  the  fogs  hover  over  the  marsh  of  human 
speculation.  If  3'ou  can  not  tell,  when  you  hear  a  man 
preach,  whether  or  not  be  believes  in  the  plenary  inspira- 
tion of  the  Scriptures,  it  is  because  he  does  not  believe  in 
it.  If,  when  you  hear  a  man  preach,  you  can  not  tell 
whether  or  not  he  believes  that  sin  is  inborn,  it  is  because 
he  does  not  think  it  is  congenital.  If,  when  you  hear  a 
man  talk  in  jnilpit  or  prayer-meeting,  you  can  not  make 
up  your  mind  whether  or  not  he  believes  in  regeneration, 
it  is  because  he  does  not  believe  in  it.     If,  when  you  hear 


44  THE  OLD   CORN  OF  CANAAN. 

a  man  speak  on  religious  themes,  you  can  not  make  up 
your  mind  whether  or  not  he  thinks  the  righteous  and  the 
wicked  will  come  out  at  the  same  place,  then  it  is  because 
he  really  believes  their  destinies  are  conterminous.  Do 
not  talk  to  me  about  a  man  being  doubtful  about  the  doc- 
trines of  grace.  He  is  not  doubtful  to  me  at  all.  Bread  is 
bread,  and  I  know  it  the  moment  I  see  it.  I  had  a  corn- 
field which  I  cultured  this  summer  with  my  own  hand.  I 
did  not  ask  once  in  all  the  summer,  "  Is  this  corn?"  I  did 
not  hunt  up  The  Agriculturist  to  get  a  picture  of  corn.  I 
was  born  in  sight  of  a  corn-field,  and  I  know  all  about  it. 
When  these  Israelites  came  to  Canaan  and  looked  off  upon 
the  fields,  the  cry  was  "Corn!  corn!"  And  if  a  man  has 
once  tasted  of  this  heavenly  bread,  he  knows  it  right  away. 
He  can  tell  this  corn  of  the  Gospel  Canaan  from  "  the  chaff 
which  the  wind  driveth  awa3\"  I  bless  God  so  many 
liave  found  this  Gospel  corn.  It  is  the  bread  of  which  if  a 
man  eat  he  shall  never  hunger.  I  set  the  gladness  of  your 
soul  to  the  tunes  of  "Ariel"  and  "Antioch."  I  ring  the 
wedding-bells,  for  Christ  and  your  soul  are  married,  and 
there  is  no  power  on  earth  or  in  hell  to  get  out  letters  of 
divorcement. 

But  alas  for  the  famine -struck!  Enough  corn,  yet  it 
seems  you  have  no  sickle  to  cut  it,  no  mill  to  grind  it,  no 
fire  to  bake  it,  no  appetite  to  eat  it.  Starving  to  death, 
when  the  plain  is  golden  with  a  magnificent  harvest!  My 
brother,  if  your  friends  had  acted  as  crazily  about  worldly 
things  as  you  have  acted  about  spiritual  things,  you  would 
have  sent  them  before  this  to  Bloomingdale  Insane  As3'lum. 
You  do  not  seem  to  realize  the  hunger  that  is  gnawing  on 
your  soul,  the  precipices  on  the  edge  of  which  you  walk, 
the  fires  into  which  you  run.     Oh,  the  insanity,  the  awful 


THE  OLD   COIiN  OF  CANAAX.  45 

madness,  of  a  man  that  will  not  take  Christ!  When  I 
think  of  the  risks  3'ou  run,  it  seems  as  if  I  must  rush  from 
the  pulpit,  and  take  3'OU  by  the  shoulder,  and  tell  you  of 
what  is  coming  and  how  little  you  are  r^ady  for  it. 

This  summer  I  rode  some  thirteen  miles  to  see  the  Alex- 
ander^ a  large  steamship  that  was  beached  near  Southamp- 
ton, Long  Island,  last  winter.  It  was  a  splendid  vessel. 
As  I  walked  up  and  down  the  decks  and  in  the  cabins, 
I  said,  "What  a  pity  that  this  vessel  should  go  to  pieces, 
or  be  Ij'ing  here  idle!"  The  coast  wreckers  had  spent 
thirty  thousand  dollars  trying  to  get  her  off,  and  they  suc- 
ceeded once;  but  she  came  back  again  to  the  old  place. 
While  I  was  walking  on  deck,  every  ^^art  of  the  vessel 
trembled  with  the  beating  of  the  surf  on  one  side.  Since 
then  I  heard  that  that  vessel,  which  v/as  worth  two  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  dollars,  has  been  sold  for  three  thou- 
sand five  hundred,  and  is  to  be  knocked  to  pieces.  They 
had  given  up  the  idea  of  getting  her  to  sail  again.  How 
suggestive  all  that  is  to  me !  There  are  those  here  who 
are  aground  in  religious  things.  Once  you  started  for 
heaven,  but  you  are  now  aground.  Several  times  we 
thought  we  had  started  you  again  heavenward,  but  you 
soon  got  back  to  the  old  place,  and  there  is  not  much  pros- 
pect you  will  ever  reach  the  harbors  of  the  blessed.  I  fear 
it  will  be  after  a  while  said  in  regard  to  some  of  you,  "No 
use;  no  use.  To  be  destroyed  without  remed}'."  God's 
wreckers  will  pronounce  you  a  hopeless  case.  Beached  for 
eternity!  And  then  it  will  be  written  in  heaven  concerning 
some  one  of  your  size,  and  complexion,  and  age,  and  name, 
tliat  he  was  invited  to  be  saved,  but  refused  the  offer,  and 
starved  to  death  within  sight  of  the  fields  and  granaries  full 
of  the  Old  Corn  of  Canaan. 


46  ZIELAO  IN  ASHES. 


ZIKLAG  IN  ASHES. 

"Then  David  and  the  people  that  were  with  him  lifted  up  their  voice  and 

wept,  until  they  had  no  more  power  to  weep David  recovered  all...... 

As  liis  part  is  that  goeth  down  to  the  battle,  so  shall  his  part  be  that  tarrieth 
by  the  stuff"." — 1  Samuel  xxx.,  4,  19,  24. 

THERE  is  intense  excitement  in  the  village  of  Ziklag. 
David  and  his  men  are  bidding  good-bye  to  their  fam- 
ilies, and  are  off  for  the  wars.  In  that  little  village  of  Zik- 
lag the  defenseless  ones  will  be  safe  until  the  warriors, 
flushed  with  victory,  come  home.  But  will  the  defenseless 
ones  be  safe?  The  soft  arms  of  children  are  around  the 
necks  of  the  bronzed  warriors  until  they  shake  themselves 
free  and  start,  and  handkerchiefs  and  flags  are  waved  and 
kisses  thrown  until  the  armed  men  vanish  bej^ond  the  hills. 
David  and  his  men  soon  get  through  with  their  campaign 
and  start  homeward.  Every  night  on  their  way  home,  no 
sooner  does  the  soldier  put  his  head  on  the  knapsack  than 
in  his  dream  he  hears  the  welcome  of  the  wife  and  the 
shout  of  the  child.  Oh,  what  long  stories  they  will  have 
to  tell  their  families,  of  how  they  dodged  the  battle-axe! 
and  then  will  roll  up  their  sleeve  and  show  the  half-healed 
wound.  With  glad,  quick  step,  they  march  on,  David  and 
his  men,  for  they  are  marching  home.  Now  they  come 
up  to  the  last  hill  which  overlooks  Ziklag,  and  they  expect 
in  a  moment  to  see  the  dwelling-places  of  their  loved  ones. 
They  look,  and  as  they  look  their  cheek  turns  pale,  and 
their  lip  quivers,  and  their  hand  involuntarily  comes  down 


ZIKLAG  IX  A8UES.  47 

on  the  hilt  of  the  sword.  "Where  is  Ziklag?  Where 
are  our  homes?"  they  cry.  Alas!  the  curling  smoke 
above  the  ruin  tells  the  tragedy.  The  Amalekites  have 
come  down  and  consumed  the  village,  and  carried  the  moth- 
ers and  the  wives  and  the  children  of  David  and  liis  men 
into  captivity.  The  swarthy  warriors  stand  for  a  few  mo- 
ments transfixed  with  horror.  Then  their  ej^es  glance  to 
each  other,  and  they  burst  into  uncontrollable  weeping;  for 
when  a  strong  warrior  weeps,  the  grief  is  appalling.  It 
seems  as  if  the  emotion  might  tear  him  to  pieces.  They 
"  wept  until  they  had  no  more  power  to  weep."  But  soon 
their  sorrow  turns  into  rage,  and  David,  swinging  his  sword 
high  in  air,  cries,  "Pursue,  for  thou  shalt  overtake  them, 
and  without  fail  recover  all."  Now  the  march  becomes  a 
"double-quick."  Two  hundred  of  David's  men  stop  by 
the  brook  Besor,  faint  with  fatigue  and  grief.  They  can 
not  go  a  step  farther.  They  are  left  there.  But  the  other 
four  hundred  men  under  David,  with  a  sort  of  panther 
step,  march  on  in  sorrow  and  in  rage.  They  find  by  the 
side  of  the  road  a  half-dead  Egyptian,  and  they  resuscitate 
him,  and  compel  him  to  tell  the  whole  story.  He  says, 
"Yonder  they  went,  the  captors  and  the  captives,"  point- 
ing in  the  direction.  Forward,  ye  four  hundred  brave  men 
of  fire !  Very  soon  David  and  his  enraged  company  come 
upon  the  Amalekitish  host.  Yonder  they  see  their  own 
wives  and  children  and  mothers,  and  under  Amalekitish 
guard.  Here  are  the  officers  of  the  Amalekitish  army 
holding  a  banquet.  The  cups  are  full,  the  music  is  roused, 
the  dance  begins.  The  Amalekitish  host  cheer  and  cheer 
and  cheer  over  their  victory.  But,  without  note  of  bugle 
or  warning  of  trumpet,  David  and  his  four  hundred  men 
burst  upon  the  scene,  suddenly  as  Robert  Bruce  hurled  his 


48  ZIKLAO  IN  ASHES. 

Scotchmen  upon  the  revelers  at  Bannockburn,  David 
and  his  men  look  up,  and  one  glance  at  their  loved  ones  in 
captivity  and  under  Amalekitish  guard  throws  them  into 
a  very  fury  of  determination  ;  for  you  know  how  men  will 
fight  when  they  fight  for  their  wives  and  children.  Ah, 
there  are  lightnings  in  their  eye,  and  Qvevj  finger  is  a 
spear,  and  their  voice  is  like  the  shout  of  the  whirlwind ! 
Amidst  the  upset  tankards  and  the  costly  viands  crushed 
underfoot,  the  wounded  Amalekites  lie  (their  blood  min- 
gling with  their  wine),  shrieking  for  mercy.  No  sooner 
do  David  and  his  men  win  the  victory  than  they  throw 
their. swords  down  into  the  dust — what  do  they  want  with 
swords  now?  —  and  the  broken  families  come  together 
amidst  a  great  shout  of  joy  that  makes  the  parting  scene  in 
Ziklag  seem  very  insipid  in  the  comparison.  The  rough 
old  warrior  has  to  use  some  persuasion  before  he  can  get 
his  child  to  come  to  him  now  after  so  long  an  absence; 
but  soon  the  little  finge'\'  traces  the  familiar  wrinkle  across 
the  scarred  face.  And  then  the  empty  tankards  are  set 
up,  and  they  are  filled  with  the  best  wine  from  the  hills, 
and  David  and  his  men,  tlie  husbands,  the  wives,  the  broth- 
ers, the  sisters,  drink  to  the  overthrow  of  the  Amalekites 
and  to  the  rebuilding  of  Ziklag.  So,  O  Lord,  let  thine 
enemies  perish! 

Now  they  are  coming  home,  David  and  his  men  and 
their  families — a  long  procession.  Men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren, loaded  with  jewels  and  robes  and  with  all  kinds  of 
trophies  that  the  Amalekites  had  gathered  up  in  years  of 
conquest — every  thing  now  in  the  hands  of  David  and  his 
men.  When  they  come  by  the  brook  Besor,  the  place 
"where  staid  the  men  sick  and  incompetent  to  travel,  the 
jewels  and  the  robes  and  all  kinds  of  treasures  are  divided 


ZIELAG  IX  A,mES\  49 

fimong  tbe  sick  as  well  as  among  the  well.  Surely,  the 
lame  and  exhausted  ought  to  have  some  of  the  treasures. 
Here  is  a  robe  for  this  pale-faced  warrior.  Here  is  a  pil- 
low for  this  dying  man.  Here  is  a  handful  of  gold  for  the 
wasted  trumpeter.  I  really  think  that  these  men  who  faint- 
ed by  the  brook  Besor  may  have  endured  as  much  as  those 
men  who  went  into  the  battle.  Some  mean  fellows  objected 
to  the  sick  ones  having  any  of  the  spoils.  The  objectors 
said,  "These  men  did  not  fight."  David,  with  a  magnan- 
imous -heart,  replies,  "As  his  part  is  that  goeth  down  to  the 
battle,  so  shall  his  part  be  that  tarrieth  by  the  stuff." 

This  subject  is  practically  suggestive  to  me.  Thank 
God,  in  these  times  a  man  can  go  off  on  a  journey,  and  be 
gone  weeks  and  months,  and  come  back  and  see  his  house 
untouched  of  incendiary,  and  have  his  family  on  the  step 
to  greet  him  if  by  telegram  he  has  foretold  the  moment 
of  his  coming.  But  there  are  Amalekitish  disasters,  and 
there  are  Amalekitish  diseases,  that  sometimes  come  down 
upon  one's  home,  making  as  devastating  work  as  the  day 
when  Ziklag  took  fire.  There  are  families  in  my  congre- 
gation whose  homes  have  been  broken  up.  No  battering- 
ram  smote  in  the  door,  no  iconoclast  crumbled  the  statues, 
no  flame  leaped  amidst  the  curtains;  but  so  far  as  all  the 
joy  and  merriment  that  once  belonged  to  that  house  are 
concerned,  the  home  has  departed.  Armed  diseases  came 
down  upon  the  quietness  of  the  scene  —  scarlet  fevers,  or 
pleurisies,  or  consumptions,  or  undefined  disorders  came 
and  seized  upon  some  members  of  tliat  family,  and  carried 
them  away.  Ziklag  in  ashes!  And  you  go  about,  some- 
times weeping  and  sometimes  enraged,  wanting  to  get 
back  your  loved  ones  as  much  as  David  and  his  men 
wanted  to  reconstruct  their  despoiled  households.     Ziklag 

3 


50  ZIKLAG  IN  ASHES. 

in  asbes !  Some  of  you  went  off  from  home.  You.  counted 
the  daj^s  of  your  absence.  Every  day  seemed  as  long  as  a 
week.  Oh  I  how  glad  you  were  when  the  time  came  for 
you  to  go  aboard  the  steamboat  or  rail -car  and  start  for 
home  !  You  arrived.  You  went  up  the  street  where  your 
dwelling  was,  and  in  the  night  you  put  your  hand  on  the 
door-bell,  and,  behold  I  it  was  wrapped  with  the  signal  of 
bereavement,  and  you  found  that  Amalekitish  Death,  which 
has  devastated  a  thousand  other  households,  had  blasted 
yours.  You  go  about  weeping  amidst  the  desolation  of 
your  once  happy  home,  thinking  of  the  bright  eyes  closed, 
and  the  noble  hearts  stopped,  and  the  gentle  hands  folded, 
and  you  weep  until  you  have  no  more  power  to  weep. 
Ziklag  in  ashes! 

A  gentleman  went  to  a  friend  of  mine  in  the  city  of 
Washington,  and  asked  that  through  him  he  might  get  a 
consulship  to  some  foreign  port.  My  friend  said  to  him, 
"  What  do  you  want  to  go  away  from  your  beautiful  home 
for,  into  a  foreign  port?"  "Oh,"  he  replied,  "my  home 
is  gone !  My  six  children  are  dead,  I  must  get  away,  sir. 
I  can't  stand  it  in  this  country  any  longer."  Ziklag  in 
ashes! 

Why  these  long  shadows  of  bereavement  across  this  au- 
dience? Why  is  it  that  in  almost  every  assemblage  black 
is  the  predominant  color  of  the  apparel?  Is  it  because 
you  do  not  like  saffron  or  brown  or  violet?  Oh  no! 
You  say,  "  The  world  is  not  so  bright  to  us  as  once  it 
was  ;"  and  there  is  a  story  of  silent  voices,  and  of  still  feet, 
and  of  loved  ones  gone,  and  when  you  look  over  the  hills, 
expecting  only  beauty  and  loveliness,  you  find  only  devas- 
tation and  woe.     Ziklag  in  ashes! 

Last  Wednesday  week,  in  Ulster  County,  New  York, 


ZIKLAO  IN  ASHES.  51 

the  village  church  was  decorated  until  the  fragrance  of  the 
flowers  was  almost  bewildering.  The  maidens  of  the  vil- 
lage had  emptied  the  place  of  flowers  upon  one  marriage 
altar.  One  of  their  own  number  was  affianced  to  a  min- 
ister of  Christ,  who  had  come  to  take  her  to  his  own  home. 
With  hands  joined,  amidst  a  congratulatory  audience,  the 
vows  were  taken.  In  three  days  from  that  time  one  of 
those  who  stood  at  the  altar  exchanged  earth  for  heaven. 
The  wedding  march  broke  down  into  the  funeral  dirge. 
There  were  not  enough  flowers  now  for  the  coffin-lid,  be- 
cause they  had  all  been  taken  for  the  bridal  hour.  The 
dead  minister  of  Christ  is  brought  to  another  village.  He 
had  gone  out  from  them  less  than  a  week  before  in  his 
strength;  now  he  comes  home  lifeless.  The  whole  church 
bewailed  him.  The  solemn  procession  moved  around  to 
look  upon  the  still  face  that  once  had  beamed  with  mes- 
sages of  salvation.  Little  children  were  lifted  up  to  look 
at  him.  And  some  of  those  whom  he  had  comforted  in 
days  of  sorrow,  when  they  passed  that  silent  form,  made 
the  place  dreadful  with  their  weeping.  Another  village 
emptied  of  its  flowers — some  of  them  put  in  the  shape  of  a 
cross  to  symbolize  his  hope,  others  put  in  the  shape  of  a 
crown  to  symbolize  his  triumph.  A  hundred  lights  blown 
out  in  one  strong  gust  from  tlie  open  door  of  a  sepulchre. 
Ziklag  in  ashes! 

I  preach  this  sermon  to-day,  because  I  want  to  rally 
you,  as  David  rallied  his  men,  for  the  recovery  of  the  loved 
and  the  lost.  I  want  not  only  to  win  heaven,  but  I  want 
all  this  congregation  to  go  along  with  me.  I  feel  that 
somehow  I  have  a  responsibility  in  your  arriving  at  that 
great  city.  I  have  on  other  Sabbaths  used  other  induce- 
ments.    I  mean,  to-day,  for  the  sake  of  variety,  hoping  to 


52  ZIKLAO  IN  ASHES. 

reach  jour  heart,  to  try  another  kind  of  inducement.  Do 
you  really  want  to  join  the  companionship  of  your  loved 
ones  who  have  gone?  Are  you  as  anxious  to  join  them 
as  David  and  his  men  were  to  join  their  families?  Then 
I  am  here,  in  the  name  of  God,  to  say  that  you  ma}^,  and 
to  tell  you  how. 

I  remark,  in  the  first  place,  if  you  want  to  join  your 
loved  ones  in  glory,  you  must  travel  the  same  way  they 
went.  No  sooner  had  the  half-dead  Egyptian  been  resus- 
citated than  he  pointed  the  way  the  captors  and  the  cap- 
tives had  gone,  and  David  and  his  men  followed  after.  So 
our  Christian  friends  have  gone  into  another  country,  and 
if  we  want  to  reach  their  companionship  we  must  take  the 
same  road.  They  repented  ;  we  must  repent.  They  praj^ed ; 
we  must  pray.  They  trusted  in  Christ;  we  must  trust 
in  Christ.  They  lived  a  religious  life;  we  must  live  a  re- 
ligious life.  They  were  in  some  things  like  ourselves.  I 
know,  now  that  they  are  gone,  there  is  a  halo  around  their 
names;  but  they  had  their  faults.  They  said  and  did 
things  they  ought  never  to  have  said  or  done.  They  were 
sometimes  rebellious,  sometimes  cast  down.  They  were 
far  from  being  perfect.  So  I  suppose  that  when  we  have 
gone,  some  things  in  us  that  are  now  only  tolerable  may 
be  almost  resplendent.  But  as  they  were  like  us  in  defi- 
ciencies, we  ought  to  be  like  them  in  taking  a  supernal 
Christ  to  make  up  for  the  deficits.  Had  it  not  been  for 
Jesus,  they  would  have  all  perished  ;  but  Christ  confronted 
them,  and  said,  "  I  am  the  way,"  and  they  took  it. 

I  have  also  to  say  to  you  that  the  path  that  these  cap- 
tives trod  ivas  a  troubled  path,  and  that  David  and  his 
men  had  to  go  over  the  same  difficult  way.  While  these 
captives  were  being  taken  off,  they  said,  "  Oh !  we  are  so 


ZIKLAO  IX  ASHES.  53 

tired;  we  are  so  sick  ;  we  arc  so  liungry !"  But  the  men 
wlio  had  charge  of  them  said,  "  Stop  this  crying.  Go  on:' 
David  and  his  men  also  found  it  a  hard  way.  They  nad 
to  ti-avel  it.  Our  friends  have  gone  into  glory,  and  it  is 
through  much  tribulation  that  we  are  to  enter  into  tne 
kingdom.  How  our  loved  ones  used  to  have  to  struggle! 
how  their  old  hearts  ached  !  how  sometimes  they  had  a  lus- 
sle  for  bread!  In  our  childhood  we  wondered  why  there 
were  so  many  wrinkles  on  their  faces.  We  did  not  know 
that  what  were  called  "crow's-feet"  on  their  faces  were 
the  marks  of  the  black  raven-  of  trouble.  Did  you  never 
hear  the  old  people,  seated  by  the  evening  stand,  tallc  over 
their  early  trials,  their  hardships,  the  accidents,  the  bunais, 
the  disappointments,  the  empty  flour-barrel  when  tnere 
were  so  many  hungry  ones  to  feed,  the  sickness  almost 
unto  death,  where  the  next  dose  of  morphine  decidea  oe- 
twccn  ghastly  bereavement  and  an  unbroken  home  circie  ? 
Oh  yes!  it  was  trouble  that  whitened  their  hair.  It  was 
trouble  that  shook  the  cup  in  their  hands.  It  was  trouble 
that  washed  the  lustre  from  their  eyes  with  the  rain  of  tears 
until  they  needed  spectacles.  It  was  trouble  that  made 
the  cane  a  necessity  for  their  journey.  Do  3'ou  never  re- 
member seeing  your  old  mother  sitting,  on  some  rainy  day, 
looking  out  of  the  window,  her  elbow  on  the  window-siil, 
her  hand  to  her  brow — looking  out,  not  seeing  the  falling 
shower  at  all  (you  well  knew  she  was  looking  into  the  ais- 
tant  past),  until  the  apron  came  up  to  her  eyes,  because  tne 
memory  was  too  much  for  her? 

"Oft  the  big,  unbidden  tear, 

Stealing  down  the  furrowed  cheek, 
Told  in  eloquence  sincere, 
Tales  of  woe  they  could  not  speak. 


54  ZIKLAG   IX  ASHES. 

"But  this  scene  of  weeping  o'er, 
Past  this  scene  of  toil  and  pain, 
They  shall  feel  distress  no  more, 
Never,  never  weep  again." 

"Who  are  these  under  the  altar?"  the  question  was  ask- 
ed ;  and  the  response  came,  "  These  are  they  which  came 
out  of  great  tribulation,  and  have  washed  their  robes,  and 
made  them  white  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb."  Our  friends 
went  by  a  path  of  tears  into  glory.  Be  not  surprised  if 
we  have  to  travel  the  same  pathway. 

I  remark,  again,  if  we  want  to  win  the  society  of  our 
friends  in  heaven,  we  will  not  only  have  to  travel  a  path 
of  faith  and  a  path  of  tribulation,  but  we  will  also  have  to 
positively  tattle  for  their  companionship.  David  and  his  men 
never  wanted  sharp  swords  and  invulnerable  shields  and 
thick  breastplates  so  much  as  they  wanted  tliem  on  the 
day  when  they  came  down  upon  the  Arnalekites,  If  they 
had  lost  that  battle,  they  never  would  have  got  their  fami- 
lies back.  I  suppose  that  one  glance  at  their  loved  ones 
in  captivity  hurled  them  into  the  battle  with  tenfold  cour- 
age and  energy.  They  said,  "We  must  win  it.  Every 
thing  depends  upon  it.  Let  each  one  take  a  man  on  point 
of  spear  or  sword.  We  must  win  it."  And  I  have  to  tell 
you  that  between  us  and  coming  into  the  companionship 
of  our  loved  ones  who  are  departed  there  is  an  Austerlitz, 
there  is  a  Gettysburg,  there  is  a  Waterloo.  War  with  the 
world,  war  with  the  flesh,  war  with  the  devil.  We  have 
either  to  conquer  our  troubles,  or  our  troubles  will  conquer 
us.  David  will  either  slay  the  Amalekites,  or  the  Amalek- 
ites  will  slay  David.  And  yet  is  not  the  fort  to  be  taken 
worth  all  the  pain,  all  the  peril,  all  the  besiegement  ?  Look ! 
Who  are  they  on  the  bright  hills  of  heaven  yonder?    There 


ZIKLAG  IX  ASHES.  55 

thej  arc,  those  who  sat  at  your  own  table,  the  chair  now 
vacant.  There  they  are,  those  whom  3'ou  rocked  in  infancy 
in  the  cradle,  or  hushed  to  sleep  in  your  arms.  There  they 
are,  those  in  whose  life  your  life  was  bound  up.  There 
they  are,  their  brow  more  radiant  than  ever  before  you 
saw  it,  their  lips  waiting  for  the  kiss  of  heavenly  greeting, 
their  cheek  roseate  with  the  health  of  eternal  summer,  their 
hands  beckoning  you  up  the  steep,  their  feet  bounding 
with  the  mirth  of  heaven.  The  pallor  of  their  last  sickness 
gone  out  of  their  face,  never  more  to  be  sick,  never  more 
to  cough,  never  more  to  limp,  never  more  to  be  old,  never 
more  to  weep.  They  are  watching  from  those  heights  to 
see  if  through  Chiist  you  can  take  that  fort,  and  whether 
you  will  rush  in  upon  them  —  victors.  They  know  that 
upon  this  battle  depends  whether  you  will  ever  join  their 
society.  Up!  strike  harder!  Charge  more  bravely  !  Ee- 
member  that  every  inch  you  gain  puts  you  so  much  farther 
on  toward  that  heavenly  reunion. 

If  this  morning  while  I  speak  you  could  hear  the  can- 
nonade of  a  foreign  navy,  coming  through  the  "Narrows," 
which  was  to  despoil  our  cit}^,  and  if  they  really  should 
succeed  in  carrying  our  families  away  from  us,  how  long 
would  we  take  before  we  resolved  to  go  after  them?  Ev- 
ery weapon,  whether  fresh  from  Springfield  or  old  and 
rusty  in  the  garret,  would  be  brought  out;  and  we  would 
urge  on,  and,  coming  in  front  of  the  foe,  we  would  look  at 
them,  and  then  look  at  our  families,  and  the  cry  would  be, 
"Victory  or  death!"  and  when  the  ammunition  was  gone, 
we  would  take  the  captors  on  the  point  of  the  bayonet  or 
under  the  breech  of  the  gun.  If  you  would  make  such  a 
struggle  for  the  gctting-back  of  your  eai'thly  fi-iends,  will 
you  not  make  as  much  struggle  for  the  gaining  of  the  eter* 


56  ZIKLAG  IN  ASHES. 

nal  companionship  of  your  heavenly  friends?  Oh  yes  !  we 
must  join  them.  We  must  sit  in  their  holy  society.  We 
must  sing  with  them  the  song.  We  must  celebrate  with 
them  the  triumph.  Let  it  never  be  told  on  earth  or  in 
heaven  that  David  and  his  men  pushed  out  with  braver 
hearts  for  the  getting-back  of  their  earthly  friends  for  a  few 
years  on  earth  than  we  to  get  our  departed ! 

You  say  that  all  this  implies  that  our  departed  Chris- 
tian friends  are  alive.  Why,  had  you  any  idea  they  were 
dead?  They  have  only  moved.  If  you  should  go  on  the 
2d  of  May  to  a  house  where  one  of  your  friends  lived,  and 
found  him  gone,  you  would  not  think  that  he  was  dead. 
You  would  inquire  next  door  where  he  had  moved  to. 
Our  departed  Christian  friends  have  only  taken  another 
house.  The  secret  is  that  they  are  richer  now  than  they 
once  were,  and  can  afford  a  better  residence.  They  once 
drank  out  of  earthenware  ;  they  now  drink  from  the  King's 
chalice.  "Joseph  is  yet  alive,"  and  Jacob  will  go  up  and 
see  him.  Living?  are  they?  Why,  if  a  man  can  live  in 
this  damp,  dark  dungeon  of  earthly  captivity,  can  he  not 
live  where  he  breathes  the  bracing  atmosphere  of  the 
mountains  of  heaven  ?     Oh  3''es,  they  are  living! 

Do  you  think  that  Paul  is  so  near  dead  now  as  he  was 
when  he  was  living  in  the  Roman  dungeon?  Do  you 
think  that  Frederick  Eobertson,  of  Brighton,  is  as  near 
dead  now  as  he  was  when,  year  after  year,  he  slept  seated 
on  the  floor,  his  head  on  the  bottom  of  a  chair,  because  he 
could  find  ease  in  no  other  position?  Do  you  think  that 
Robert  Hall  is  as  near  dead  now  as  when,  on  his  couch,  he 
tossed  in  physical  tortures  ?  No.  Death  gave  them  the 
few  black  drops  that  cured  them.  That  is  all  death  does 
to  a  Christian — cures  him.     I  know  that  what  I  have  said 


ZIKLAG  IN  ASHES.  57 

implies  that  they  are  living.  There  is  no  question  about 
that.  The  only  question,  this  morning,  is  whether  you 
will  ever  join  them. 

But  I  must  not  forget  those  two  hundred  men  who 
fainted  by  the  brook  Besor.  They  could  not  take  another 
step  farther.  Their  feet  were  sore;  their  head  ached; 
their  entire  nature  was  exhausted.  Besides  that,  they 
were  broken-hearted  because  their  homes  were  gone.  Zik- 
lag  in  ashes!  And  yet  David,  when  he  comes  up  to  them, 
divides  the  spoils  among  them !  He  says  the}^  shall  have 
some  of  the  jewels,  some  of  the  robes,  some  of  the  treas- 
ures. I  look  over  this  audience  this  morning,  and  I  find 
at  least  two  hundred  who  have  fainted  by  the  brook  Besor 
— the  brook  of  tears.  You  feel  as  if  you  could  not  take 
another  step  farther,  as  though  you  could  never  look  up 
again.  But  I  am  going  to  imitate  David,  and  divide  among 
you  some  glorious  trophies.  Here  is  a  robe,  "All  things 
work  together  for  good,  to  those  who  love  God."  Wrap 
yourself  in  that  glorious  promise.  Here  is  for  your  neck 
a  string  of  pearls,  made  out  of  crystallized  tears,  "  Weeping 
may  endure  for  a  night,  but  jo}^  cometh  in  the  morning." 
Here  is  a  coronet,  "  Be  thou  faithful  unto  death,  and  I  will 
give  thee  a  crown  of  life."  0  ye  fainting  ones  by  the 
brook  Besor,  dip  your  blistered  feet  in  the  running  stream 
of  God's  mercy.  Bathe  your  brow  at  the  wells  of  salva- 
tion. Soothe  your  wounds  with  the  balsam  that  exudes 
from  trees  of  life.  God  will  not  utterly  cast  you  off",  O 
broken-hearted  man,  O  broken-hearted  woman,  fainting  by 
the  brook  Besor. 

A  shepherd  finds  that  his  musical  pipe  is  bruised.  He 
says,  "  I  can't  get  any  more  music  out  of  this  instrument; 
so  I  will  just  break  it,  and  I  will  throw  this  reed  away. 

3* 


58  ZIKLAQ  IX  ASHES. 

Then  I  will  get  another  reed,  nnd  I  will  play  music  on 
that."  But  God  says  he  will  not  cast  yon  off  because  all  the 
music  has  gone  out  of  your  soul.  "The  bruised  reed  he 
will  not  break."  As  far  as  I  can  tell  the  diagnosis  of  your 
disease,  you  want  Divine  nursing,  and  it  is  promised  you: 
"As  one  whom  his  mother  comforteth,  so  will  I  comfort 
you."  God  will  see  you  all  the  way  through,  0  troubled 
soul,  and  when  you  come  down  to  the  Jordan  of  death, 
you  will  find  it  to  be  as  thin  a  brook  as  Besor ;  for  Dr. 
Kobinson  says  that,  in  April,  Besor  dries  up,  and  there  is 
no  brook  at  all.  And  in  j^our  last  moment  you  will  be  as 
placid  as  the  Kentucky  minister  who  recently  went  up  to 
God,  saying,  in  the  dying  hour,  "  Write  to  my  sister  Kate, 
and  tell  her  not  to  be  worried  and  frightened  about  the 
story  of  the  horrors  around  the  death-bed.  Tell  her  there 
is  not  a  word  of  truth  in  it,  for  I  am  there  now,  and  Jesus 
is  with  me,  and  I  find  it  a  very  happy  way ;  not  because  I 
am  a  good  man,  for  I  am  not;  I  am  nothing  but  a  poor, 
miserable  sinner;  but  I  have  an  Almighty  Saviour,  and 
both  of  his  arms  are  around  me." 

May  God  Almighty,  through  the  blood  of  the  everlast- 
ing covenant,  bring  us  into  the  companionship  of  our  loved 
ones  who  have  already  entered  the  heavenly  land,  and  into 
the  presence  of  Christ  whom,  not  having  seen,  we  love,  and 
so  David  shall  recover  all,  "and  as  his  part  is  that  goeth 
down  to  the  battle,  so  shall  his  part  be  that  tarrieth  by 
the  stuff." 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GHOSTS.  59 


THE  EELIGION  OF  GHOSTS. 

"Behold,  there  is  a  woman  that  hath  a  familiar  spirit  at  En-dor.  And 
Saul  disguised  himself,  and  put  on  otlier  raiment,  and  he  went,  and  two  men 
with  liim,  and  they  came  to  tlie  woman  by  night :  and  he  said,  I  pray  thee, 
divine  unto  me  by  the  familiar  spirit,  and  bring  me  him  up  whom  I  shall 
name  unto  thee." — 1  Sa/nwe/xxviii.,  7,  8. 

'^pilOUBLE  to  the  right  of  liim  and  trouble  to  the  left 
-■-  of  him,  Saul  knew  not  what  to  do.  As  a  last  resort, 
he  concluded  to  seek  out  a  spiritual  medium,  or  a  witch, 
or  any  thing  that  you  please  to  call  her — at  any  rate,  a 
woman  who  had  communication  with  the  spirits  of  the 
eternal  world.  It  was  a  very  difficult  thing  to  do,  for 
Saul  had  either  slain  all  the  witches  or  compelled  them  to 
stop  business.  A  servant  one  day  said  to  King  Saul,  "I 
know  of  a  spiritual  medium  down  at  the  village  of  En-dor." 
"Do  you?"  said  the  king.  Nightfalls.  Saul,  putting  off 
his  kingly  robes,  and  putting  on  the  dress  of  a  plain  cit- 
izen, with  two  servants  goes  out  to  hunt  up  this  spiritual 
medium.  It  was  no  easy  thing  for  Saul  to  disguise  him- 
self, for  the  tallest  people  in  the  country  only  came  up  to 
his  shoulder,  and,  I  think,  from  the  strength  of  the  man 
and  the  wa}^  he  bore  himself,  he  must  have  been  well  pro- 
portioned. It  must  have  been  a  frightful  thing  to  see  a 
man  walking  along  in  the  night  eight  or  nine  feet  high,  I 
suppose,  as  the  people  saw  him  pass,  they  said,  "Who  is 
tliat?  lie  is  as  tall  as  the  king" — havinsr  no  idea  that  in 
such  a  plain  dress  there  reall^y  was  passing  the  king. 
Saul  and  his  servants  after  a  while  I'each  the  village,  and 


60  THE  RELIGION  OF  GHOSTS. 

they  say,  "I  wonder  if  this  is  the  house;"  and  they  look 
in.  and  they  see  the  haggard,  weird,  and  shriveled  -  up 
spiritual  medium  sitting  by  the  light,  and  on  the  table 
sculptured  images,  and  divining-rods,  and  poisonous  herbs, 
and  bottles,  and  vases.  Tliey  say,  "  Yes,  this  must  be  the 
Dlace."  One  loud  rap  brings  the  woman  to  the  door,  and 
as  she  stands  there,  holding  the  candle  or  lamp  above  her 
head  and  peering  out  into  the  darkness,  she  says,  "  Who  is 
here?"  The  tall  king  informs  her  that  he  has  come  to 
have  his  fortune  told.  When  she  hears  that,  she  trem- 
bles and  almost  drops  the  light,  for  she  knows  there  is  no 
chance  for  a  fortune-teller  or  spiritual  medium  in  all  the 
land.  But  Saul  having  sworn  that  no  harm  shall  come  to 
her,  she  says,  "  Well,  whom  shall  I  bring  up  from  the  dead  ?" 
Saul  sa3^s,  "  Bring  up  Samuel."  That  was  the  prophet  who 
had  died  a  little  while  before.  I  see  her  waving  a  wand, 
or  stirring  up  some  poisonous  herbs  in  a  caldron,  or  hear 
her  muttering  over  some  incantations,  or  stamping  with 
her  foot,  as  she  cries  out  to  the  realm  of  the  dead,  "Sam- 
uel !  Samuel  1"  Lo,  the  freezing  horror!  The  floor  of  the 
tenement  opens,  and  the  gray  hairs  float  up  ;  and  the  fore- 
head, the  eyes,  the  lips,  the  shoulders,  the  arms,  the  feet,  the 
entire  body  of  dead  Samuel,  wrapped  in  sepulchral  robe, 
appear  to  the  astonished  group,  who  stagger  back,  and 
hold  fast,  and  catch  their  breath,  and  shiver  with  the  terror. 
The  dead  prophet,  white  and  awful  from  the  tomb,  begins 
to  move  his  ashen  lips,  and  he  glares  upon  King  Saul,  and 
cries  out,  "What  did  you  bring  me  up  for?  Why  did 
you  break  my  long  sleep  ?  What  do  you  mean,  King 
Saul?"  Saul,  trying  to  compose  and  control  himself, 
makes  this  stammering  and  affrighted  utterance,  as  he  says 
to  the  dead  prophet,  "  The  Lord  is  against  me,  and  I  have 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GHOSTS.  61 

come  to  you  for  help.  What  shall  I  do  ?"  The  dead 
prophet  stretched  forth  his  finger  to  King  Saul,  and  said, 
"  Die  to-morrow  !  Come  with  me  into  the  sepulchre.  I  am 
going  now.  Come,  come  with  me!"  And,  lol  the  floor 
again  opens,  and  the  feet  of  the  dead  prophet  disappear, 
and  the  arms  and  the  shoulders  and  the  forehead.  The 
floor  closes.  Nothing  is  left  in  the  room  but  Saul,  and 
the  two  servants,  and  the  spiritual  medium,  and  the  sculpt- 
ured images,  and  the  divining-rods,  and  the  bottles,  and  the 
vases,  and  the  poisonous  herbs.  Oh,  that  was  an  awful 
stance ! 

I  learn  first  from  this  subject  that  spiritualism  is  a  very 
old  religion.  It  is  natural  that  people  should  want  to  know 
the  origin  and  the  history  of  a  doctrine  which  is  so  wide- 
spread in  all  the  villages,  towns,  and  cities  of  the  civilized 
world,  getting  new  converts  every  day — a  doctrine  with 
which  many  of  you  are  already  tinged. 

Spiritualism  in  this  country  was  born  in  1847,  in  Hydes- 
ville,  Wayne  County,  New  York,  when  one  night  there 
was  a  loud  rap  heard  against  the  door  of  Michael  Week- 
man ;  a  rap  a  second  time,  a  rap  a  third  time;  and  all 
three  times,  when  the  door  was  opened,  there  was  nothing 
found  there,  the  knocking  having  been  made  seemingly 
by  invisible  knuckles.  In  that  same  house  there  was  a 
young  woman  who  had  a  cold  hand  passed  over  her  fiice, 
and,  there  being  seemingly  no  arm  attached  to  it,  ghostly 
suspicions  were  excited.  After  a  while,  Mr.  Fox  and  his 
family  moved  into  that  house,  and  then  every  night  there 
was  a  banging  at  the  door;  and  one  night  Mr.  Fox  said, 
"Are  you  a  spirit?"  Two  raps,  answering  in  the  afllrma- 
tive.  "Are  you  an  injured  spirit?"  Two  raps,  answering 
in  the  affirmative.     And  so  they  found  out,  as  they  say, 


62  THE  RELIGION  OF  GHOSTS. 

that  it  was  tlie  ghost  or  spirit  of  a  peddler  who  had  been 
murdered  in  that  house,  many  years  before,  for  his  five 
hundred  dollars.  Whether  the  ghost  of  the  dead  peddler 
had  come  there  to  collect  his  five  hundred  dollars,  or  his 
bones,  I  can  not  say,  not  being  a  spiritualist;  but  there 
was  a  great  racket  at  the  door,  so  Mr.  Weekman  declared, 
and  Mrs.  Weekman,  and  Mr.  Fox,  and  Mrs.  Fox,  and  all 
the  little  Foxes.  The  excitement  spread.  There  was  a 
universal  rumpus.  The  Honorable  Judge  Edmonds  de- 
clared, in  a  book,  that  he  had  actually  seen  a  bell  start 
from  the  top  shelf  of  a  closet,  heard  it  ring  over  the  people 
that  were  standing  in  the  closet;  then,  swung  by  invisible 
hands,  it  rang  over  the  people  in  the  back  parlor,  and 
floated  through  the  folding-doors  to  the  front  parlor;  rang 
over  the  people  there,  and  then  dropped  on  the  floor.  N". 
P.  Talmage,  Senator  of  the  United  States,  afterward  Gov- 
ernor of  Wisconsin,  had  his  head  completely  turned  with 
spiritualistic  demonstrations.  A  man,  as  he  was  passing 
along  the  road,  said  that  he  was  lifted  up  bodily,  and  car- 
ried toward  his  home  through  the  air  at  such  great  speed 
he  could  not  count  the  posts  on  the  fence  as  he  passed; 
and,  as  he  had  a  hand-saw  and  a  square  in  his  hand,  they 
beat  as  he  passed  through  the  air  most  delightful  music. 
And  the  tables  tipped,  and  the  stools  tilted,  and  the  bed- 
steads raised,  and  the  chairs  upset,  and  it  seemed  as  if  the 
spirits  everywhere  had  gone  into  the  furniture  business! 
Well,  the  people  said,  "  We  have  got  something  new  in 
this  country  ;  it  is  a  new  religion."  Oh  no,  my  friends. 
Thousands  of  years  ago  we  find  in  our  text  a  spiritualistic 
seance.  Nothing  in  the  spiritualistic  circles  of  our  day  has 
been  more  strange,  mj^sterious,  and  wonderful  than  things 
which  have  been  seen  in  the  past  centuries  of  the  world. 


THE  RELWIOX  OF  GIIOSTtS.  63 

III  all  the  ages  there  have  been  necromancers,  those  who 
consult  with  the  spirits  of  the  departed;  charmers,  those 
who  put  their  subjects  in  a  mesmeric  state  ;  sorcerers,  those 
who  by  taking  poisonous  drugs  see  Q\Qry  thing,  and  hear 
every  thing,  and  tell  every  thing;  dreamers,  peo})le  who  in 
their  sleeping  moments  can  see  the  future  world  and  hold 
consultation  with  spirits;  astrologers,  who  could  read  a 
new  dispensation  in  the  stars;  experts  in  palmistry,  who 
can  tell  by  the  lines  in  the  palm  of  your  hand  your  origin 
and  3'our  history.  From  a  cave  on  Mount  Parnassus,  we 
are  told,  there  was  an  exhalation  that  intoxicated  the  sheep 
and  the  goats  that  came  anywhere  near  it;  and  a  shep- 
herd approaching  it  was  thrown  by  that  exhalation  into  an 
excitement  in  which  he  could  foretell  future  events,  and 
hold  consultation  with  the  spiritual  world.  Yea,  before 
the  time  of  Christ  the  Brahmins  went  through  all  the  ta- 
ble-moving, all  the  furniture  excitement,  which  the  spirits 
have  exploited  in  our  day;  precisely  the  same  thing,  over 
and  over  again,  under  the  manipulations  of  the  Brahmins. 
Now,  do  you  say  that  spiritualism  is  different  from  these? 
I  answer,  all  these  delusions  I  have  mentioned  belong  to 
the  same  family.  Tliey  are  exhumations  from  the  unseen 
world.  What  does  God  think  of  all  these  delusions?  He 
thinks  so  severely  of  them  that  he  never  speaks  of  them 
but  with  livid  thunders  of  indignation.  He  says,  "I  will 
be  a  swift  witness  against  the  sorcerer."  He  says,  "Thou 
shalt  not  suffer  a  witch  to  live."  And  lest  you  might 
make  some  important  distinction  between  spiritualism  and 
witchcraft,  God  says,  in  so  many  words,  "  There  sliall  not  be 
among  you  a  consulter  of  familiar  s}Mrits,  or  a  wizard,  or  a 
necromancer;  for  all  that  do  these  things  are  an  abomina- 
tion unto  the  Lord."     And  he  says  again,  "  The  soul  that 


64  THE  RELIGION  OF  GHOSTS. 

turneth  after  such  as  have  familiar  spirits,  and  after  wiz- 
ards, to  go  a  whoring  after  them,  I  will  even  set  my  face 
against  that  soul,  and  will  cut  him  off  from  among  his  peo- 
ple." The  Lord  Almighty,  in  a  score  of  passages  which  I 
have  not  now  time  to  quote,  utters  his  indignation  against 
all  this  great  family  of  delusions.  After  that,  be  a  spiritu- 
alist if  you  dare! 

Still  further,  we  learn  from  this  text  how  it  is  thai  jJeople 
come  to  fall  info  spiritualism.  Saul  had  enough  trouble  to 
kill  ten  men.  He  did  not  know  where  to  go  for  relief. 
After  a  while  he  resolved  to  go  and  see  the  Witch  of 
En-dor.  He  expected  that  somehow  she  would  afford  him 
relief.  It  was  his  trouble  that  drove  him  there.  And  I 
have  to  tell  you  now  that  spiritualism  finds  its  victims  in 
the  troubled,  the  bankrupt,  the  sick,  the  bereft.  You  lose 
your  watch,  and  you  go  to  the  fortune-teller  to  find  where 
it  is.  You  are  sick  with  a  strange  disease,  and  you  go 
to  a  clairvoyant  to  find  oat  by  a  lock  of  hair  what  is 
the  matter  with  you.  You  lose  a  friend,  you  want  the 
spiritual  world  opened,  so  that  you  may  have  communica- 
tion with  him.  In  a  highly  wrought,  nervous,  and  diseased 
state  of  mind,  you  go  and  put  yourself  in  that  communica- 
tion. That  is  why  I  hate  spiritualism.  It  takes  advan- 
tage of  one  in  a  moment  of  weakness,  which  may  come 
upon  us  at  any  time.  We  lose  a  friend.  The  trial  is  keen, 
sharp,  suffocating,  almost  maddening.  If  we  could  marshal 
a  host,  and  storm  the  eternal  world,  and  recapture  our 
loved  one,  the  host  would  soon  be  marshaled.  The  house 
is  so  lonely.  The  world  is  so  dark.  Tiie  separation  is  so 
insufferable.  But  spiritualism  saj'S,  "We  will  open  the 
future  world,  and  your  loved  one  can  come  back  and  talk 
to  you."     Though  we  maj'-  not  hear  his  voice,  we  may 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GHOSTS.  (^"i 

hear  the  rap  of  his  hand.  So,  clear  the  table.  Sit  down. 
Pat  your  hands  on  the  table.  Be  very  quiet.  Five  min- 
utes gone.  Ten  minutes.  No  motion  of  the  table.  No  re- 
sponse from  the  future  world.  Twenty  minutes.  Thirty 
minutes.  Nervous  excitement  all  the  time  incrcasinfT. 
Forty  minutes.  The  table  shivers.  Two  raps  from  the 
future  world.  The  letters  of  the  alphabet  are  called  over. 
The  departed  friend's  name  is  John.  At  the  pronuncia- 
tion of  the  letter  "J,"  two  raps.  At  the  pronunciation  of 
the  letter  "  0,"  two  raps.  At  the  pronunciation  of  the  let- 
ter "II,"  two  raps.  At  the  pronunciation  of  the  letter 
"  N,"  two  raps.  There  you  have  the  whole  name  spelled 
out.  J-o-h-n,  John.  Now,  the  spirit  being  present,  3-011 
say,  "John,  are  3'OU  happy?"  Two  raps  give  an  affirma- 
tive answer.  Pretty  soon  the  hand  of  the  medium  begins 
to  twitch  and  toss,  and  begins  to  write  out,  after  paper  and 
ink  are  furnished,  a  message  from  the  eternal  world.  Wliat 
is  remarkable,  the  departed  spirit,  although  it  has  been 
amidst  the  illuminations  of  heaven,  can  not  spell  as  well  as 
it  used  to!  It  has  lost  all  grammatical  accuracy,  and  can 
not  write  as  distinctly.  I  received  a  letter  through  a  me- 
dium once.  I  sent  it  back.  I  said,  "Just  please  to  tell 
those  ghosts  they  had  better  go  to  school  and  get  improved 
in  their  orthography!"  Now,  just  think  of  spirits  that 
the  Bible  represents  as  enthroned  in  glory  coming  down 
to  crawl  under  the  table,  and  break  crocker}^,  and  ring  tea- 
bells  before  sujiper  is  ready,  and  rap  the  window-shutter 
on  a  gusty  night!  Is  there  any  consolation  in  such  poor, 
miserable  woik  compared  with  the  thought  that  our  de- 
parted Christian  friends,  rid  of  pain  and  languishing,  arc 
in  the  radiant  society  of  heaven,  and  that  we  shall  join  them 
there,  not  in  a  stifled  and  mysterious  half- utterance  which 


QQ  THE  RELIGIOy  OF  GHOSTS. 

makes   the  hair  stand   on  end  and    the  cold  chills  creep 
the  back,  but  in  an  unhindered  and  illimitable  delight? 

"And  none  shall  murmur  or  misdoubt, 
When  God's  great  sunrise  finds  us  out." 

Yes,  my  friends,  spiritualism  comes  to  those  who  are  in 
trouble,  and  sweeps  them  into  its  delusions.  Saul,  in  the 
midst  of  his  disaster,  went  to  the  Witch  of  En-dor.  The 
vast  majority  of  those  who  have  gone  to  spiritual  mediums 
have  been  sent  there  through  their  misfortunes. 

I  learn  still  further  from  this  subject,  that  spiritualism 
and  necromancy  are  affairs  of  the  darkness.  Why  did  not 
Saul  go  in  the  day-time?  He  was  ashamed  to  go.  Be- 
sides that,  he  knew  that  this  spiritual  medium,  like  all  her 
successors,  performed  her  exploits  in  the  night.  The  Dav- 
enports, the  Fowlers,  the  Foxes,  the  spiritual  mediums  of 
all  ages,  have  chosen  the  night  or  a  darkened  room.  Why  ? 
The  majority  of  their  wonders  have  been  swindles,  and  de- 
ception prospers  best  in  the  night. 

Some  of  the  performances  of  spiritual  mediums  are  not 
to  be  ascribed  to  fraud,  but  to  some  occult  law  that  after  a 
while  may  be  demonstrated.  But  I  believe  that  now  nine 
hundred  and  ninety-nine  out  of  every  thousand  achieve- 
ments on  the  part  of  spiritual  mediums  are  arrant  and  un- 
mitigated humbug.  The  mysterious  red  letters  that  used 
to  come  out  on  the  medium's  arm  were  found  to  have  been 
made  by  an  iron  pencil  that  went  heavily  over  the  flesh, 
not  tearing  it,  but  disturbing  the  blood  so  it  came  up  in 
great  round  letters.  The  witnesses  of  the  seance  have 
locked  the  door,  put  the  key  in  their  pocket,  arrested  the 
operator,  and  found  out  by  searching  the  room  that  hidden 
levers  moved  the  tables.  The  sealed  letters  that  were  mys- 
teriously read  without  opening  have  been  found  to  have 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GHOSTS.  07 

been  cut  at  the  side,  and  tlien  afterward  s\y\y  put  together 
with  gum  arable;  and  the  medium  who,  with  a  heavy 
blanket  over  his  head,  could  read  a  book  has  been  found 
to  have  had  a  bottle  of  plios[)hoi'ic  oil,  by  the  light  of  which 
any  body  can  read  a  book ;  and  ventriloquism,  and  leger- 
demain, and  sleight-of-hand,  and  optical  delusion  account 
for  nearly  every  thing.  Deception  being  the  main  staple 
of  spiritualism,  no  wonder  it  chooses  the  darkness. 

You  have  all  seen  strange  and  unaccountable  things  in 
the  night.  Almost  every  man  has  some  time  had  a  touch 
of  hallucination.  Some  time  ago,  after  I  had  been  over- 
tempted  to  eat  something  indigestible  before  retiring  at 
night,  after  retiring  I  saw  the  president  of  one  of  the 
prominent  colleges  astride  the  foot  of  the  bed,  while  he  de- 
manded of  me  a  loan  of  five  cents!  When  I  awakened  I 
had  no  idea  it  was  any  thing  supernatural.  And  I  have 
to  advise  you,  if  you  hear  and  see  strange  things  at  night, 
to  stop  eating  hot  mince -pie  and  take  a  dose  of  bilious 
medicine.  It  is  an  outraged  phj^sical  organism,  and  not  a 
call  from  the  future  world.  Spiritualism,  knowing  that  it 
is  able  to  deceive  the  very  elect  after  sundown,  does  nearly 
all  its  work  in  the  nio;ht.  The  Witch  of  En-dor  held  her 
stances  at  night;  so  do  all  the  witches.  Away  with  this 
religion  of  spooks! 

Still  further:  I  learn  from  my  text  that  sjnritualism  is 
doom  and  death  to  its  disciples.  King  Saul  thought  that  he 
would  get  help  from  the  "medium;"  but  the  first  thing 
that  he  sees  makes  him  swoon  away,  and  no  sooner  is  he 
resuscitated  than  he  is  told  he  must  die.  Spiritualism  is 
doom  and  death  to  every  one  that  yields  to  it.  It  ruins 
the  bod}'.  Look  in  upon  an  audience  of  spiritualists.  Ca- 
daverous.   Weak.    Nervous.    Exhausted.    Hands  clammy 


68  THE  RELIGION  OF  GHOSTS. 

and  cold.  Noticing  prospers  but  long  liair — soft  marshes 
jielaing  rank  grass.  Spiritualism  destroj'S  the  physical 
health.  Its  disciples  are  ever  hearing'  startling  news  from 
the  other  world.  Strange  beings  crossing  the  room  in 
white.  Table  fidget}'-,  wanting  to  get  its  feet  loose  as  if  to 
dance.  Voices  sepulchral  and  ominous.  Bewildered  with 
raps. 

I  never  knew  a  confirmed  spiritualist  who  had  a  healthy 
nervous  system.  It  is  incipient  epilepsy  and  catalepsy. 
Destroy  your  nervous  sj^stem,  and  you  might  as  well  be 
dead.  I  have  noticed  that  people  who  are  hearing  raps 
from  the  future  world  have  but  little  strength  left  to  bear 
the  hard  raps  of  this  world.  It  is  an  awful  thing  to  trifle 
with  one's  nervous  system.  It  is  so  delicate,  it  is  so  far- 
reaching,  its  derangements  are  so  terrible.  Get  the  nerv- 
ous sj'stem  a-jangle,  and,  so  far  as  your  body  and  soul  are 
concerned,  the  whole  universe  is  a-jangle.  Better,  in  our 
ignorance,  experiment  with  a  chemist's  retort  that  may 
smite  us  dead,  or  with  an  engineer's  steam-boiler  that  may 
blow  us  to  atoms,  than  experiment  with  the  nervous  sys- 
tem. A  man  can  live  with  only  one  lung  or  with  no  eyes, 
and  be  happy,  as  men  have  been  under  such  afflictions ; 
but  woe  be  to  the  man  whose  nerves  are  shattered !  Spir- 
itualism smites  first  of  all  and  mightily  against  the  nervous 
system,  and  so  makes  life  miserable. 

I  indict  spiritualism,  also,  because  it  is  a  social  and  mari- 
tal curse.  The  worst  deeds  of  licentiousness  and  the  worst 
orgies  of  obscenity  have  been  enacted  under  its  patronage. 
The  story  is  too  vile  for  me  to  tell.  I  will  not  pollute  my 
tongue  nor  your  ears  with  the  recital.  Sometimes  the  civil 
law  has  been  evoked  to  stop  the  outrage.  Families  in- 
numerable have  been  broken  up  by  it.     It  has  pushed  off 


THE  EELIGIOX  OF  GHOSTS.  C9 

liundreds  of  young  women  into  a  life  of  pro^igac3^  It 
talks  about  "elective  afiinities,"  and  "affiuital  relations," 
and  "spiritual  matches,"  and  adopts  the  whole  vocabulary 
of  free-lovism.  In  one  of  its  public  journals  it  declares 
"  marriage  is  the  monster  curse  of  civilization  ;''  that  "  it  is 
a  source  of  debauchery  and  intemperance."  If  spiritual- 
ism could  have  its  full  swing,  it  would  turn  this  world 
into  a  pandemonium  of  carnality.  It  is  an  unclean,  adul- 
terous, damnable  religion,  and  the  sooner  it  drops  into  the 
hell  from  which  it  rose,  the  better  both  for  earth  and 
heaven.  For  the  sake  of  man's  honor  and  woman's  puri- 
ty, I  say  let  the  last  vestige  of  it  perish  forever.  I  wish  I 
could  gather  up  all  the  raps  it  has  ever  heard  from  spirits 
blest  or  damned,  and  gather  them  all  on  its  own  head  in 
one  thundering  rap  of  annihilation  ! 

I  further  indict  spiritualism  for  the  fact  that  it  is  the 
cause  of  much  insanity.  There  is  not  an  asjdum  between 
Bangor  and  San  Francisco  which  has  not  the  torn  and 
bleeding  victims  of  this  delusion.  Go  into  any  asylum,  I 
care  not  wdiere  it  is,  and  the  presiding  doctor,  after  you 
liave  asked  him,  "What  is  the  matter  with  that  man?" 
■will  say,  "Spiritualism  demented  him  ;"  or,  "  What  is  the 
matter  with  that  woman?"  he  will  say,  "Spiritualism  de- 
mented her."  It  has  taken  down  some  of  the  brightest 
intellects.  It  swept  off  into  mental  midnight  judges,  sen- 
ators, governors,  ministers  of  the  Gospel,  and  one  time 
came  near  capturing  one  of  the  presidents  of  the  United 
States.  At  Flushing,  near  this  city,  a  man  became  ab- 
sorbed with  it,  forsook  his  family,  took  his  only  fifteen 
thousand  dollars,  surrendered  them  to  a  spiritual  medium 
in  New  York,  attempted  three  times  to  put  an  end  to  his 
own  life,  and  then  was  incarcerated  in  the  State  Lunatic 


70  THE  RELIGION  OF  GHOSTS. 

Asylum,  where  he  is  to-day  a  raving  maniac.  Pat  your 
hand  in  the  hand  of  this  Witch  of  En-dor,  and  she  will 
lead  you  to  bottomless  perdition,  where  she  holds  her 
everlasting  stance. 

Many  years  ago  the  steamer  Atlantic  started  from  Eu- 
rope for  the  United  States.  Getting  raid -ocean,  the  ma- 
chinery broke,  and  she  floundered  around  day  after  day 
and  week  after  week ;  and,  for  a  whole  month  after  she  was 
due,  people  wondered,  and  finally  gave  her  up.  There  was 
great  anguish  in  the  cities,  for  there  were  many  who  had 
friends  aboard  that  vessel.  Some  of  the  women,  in  their 
distress,  went  to  the  spiritual  mediums,  and  inquired  as  to 
the  fate  of  that  vessel.  The  mediums  called  up  the  spirits, 
and  the  rappings  on  the  table  indicated  the  steamship  lost, 
with  all  on  board.  Women  went  raving  mad,  and  were 
carried  to  the  lunatic  asylum.  After  a  while  one  day  a 
gun  was  heard  off  Quarantine.  The  flags  went  up  on  the 
shipping,  and  the  bells  of  the  churches  were  rung.  The 
boys  ran  through  the  streets,  crying  "  Extra !  The  Atlantic 
is  safe !"  There  was  the  embracing  as  from  the  dead,  when 
friends  came  again  to  friends ;  but  some  of  those  passen- 
gers went  up  to  find  their  wives  in  the  lunatic  asylum, 
where  this  cheat  of  infernal  spiritualism  had  put  them.  A 
man  in  Bellevue  Hospital,  dying  from  wounds  made  by  his 
own  hand,  was  asked  why  he  had  tried  to  commit  suicide, 
and  he  said,  "  The  spirits  told  me  to."  Parents  have  stran- 
gled their  children,  and  when  asked  why  they  did  it,  re- 
plied, "Spiritualism  demanded  it,"  It  is  the  patronizer 
and  forager  for  the  mad -house.  Judge  Edmonds,  in  the 
Broadway  Tabernacle,  New  York,  delivering  a  lecture  in 
behalf  of  spiritualism,  admitted,  in  so  many  words,  "  There 
is  a  fascination  about  consultation  with  the  spirits  of  the 


THE  HELIGIOX  OF  GHOSTS.  71 

dead  tliat  Ims  a  tendency  to  lead  pco])le  off  from  their  right 
judgment,  and  to  instill  into  them  a  fanaticism  that  is  re- 
volting to  the  natural  mind." 

It  not  only  ruins  its  disciples,  but  it  ruins  the  mediums 
also,  only  give  it  time.  The  Gaderean  swine,  on  the  banks 
of  the  Lake  of  Galilee,  no  sooner  became  spiritual  mediums 
than  down  they  went  in  an  avalanche  of  pork,  to  the  con- 
sternation of  all  the  herdsn^en.  The  office  of  a  medium  is 
bad  for  a  man,  bad  for  a  woman,  bad  for  a  beast. 

I  bring  against  this  delusion  a  more  fearful  indictment: 
it  niins  ilie  soul  immortal.  First,  it  makes  a  man  a  quarter 
of  an  intidel ;  then  it  makes  him  half  an  infidel;  then  it 
makes  him  a  whole  infidel.  The  entire  sj-stem,  as  I  con- 
ceive it,  is  founded  on  the  insufficiency  of  the  Word  of 
God  as  a  revelation.  God  says  the  Bible  is  enough  for 
you  to  know  about  the  future  world.  You  say  it  is  not 
enough,  and  there  is  where  you  and  the  Lord  differ.  You 
clear  the  table,  you  shove  aside  the  Bible,  you  put  your 
hand  on  the  table,  and  say,  "Now,  let  spirits  of  the  future 
•world  come  and  tell  me  something  the  Bible  has  not  told 
me."  And  although  the  Scriptures  say,  "Add  thou  not 
unto  his  words,  lest  he  reprove  thee,  and  thou  be  found  a 
liar,"3'ou  risk  it,  and  say,  "Come  back,  spirit  of  my  de- 
parted father;  come  back,  spirit  of  my  departed  mother, 
of  my  companion,  of  my  little  child,  and  tell  me  some 
things  I  don't  know  about  3^ou  and  about  the  unseen 
world."  If  God  is  ever  slapped  square  in  the  face  it  is 
when  a  spiritual  medium  puts  down  her  hand  on  the  table, 
invoking  spirits  departed  to  make  a  revelation.  God  has 
told  you  all  you  ought  to  know,  and  how  dare  you  be  pry- 
ing into  that  which  is  none  of  your  business?  You  can 
not  keep  the  Bible  in  one  hand  and  spiritualism  in  the 


72  THE  RELIGION  OF  GHOSTS. 

Other.  One  or  the  other  will  slip  out  of  your  grasp,  de- 
pend upon  it.  Spiritualism  is  adverse  to  the  Bible  in  the 
fact  that  it  has  in  these  last  days  called  from  the  future 
world  Christian  men  to  testify  against  Christianity.  Its 
mediums  call  back  Lorenzo  Dow,  the  celebrated  evangelist, 
and  Lorenzo  Dow  testifies  that  Christians  are  idolaters. 
Spiritualism  calls  back  Tom  Paine,  and  he  testifies  that  he 
is  stopping  in  the  same  house  in  heaven  with  John  Bun- 
yan.  They  call  back  John  Wesley,  and  he  testifies  against 
the  Christian  religion  which  he  all  his  life  gloriously 
preached.  Andrew  Jackson  Davis,  the  greatest  of  all  the 
spiritualists,  comes  to  the  front  and  declares  that  the  New 
Testament  is  but  "  the  dismal  echo  of  a  barbaric  age,"  and 
the  Bible  only  "one  of  the  pen-and-ink  relics  of  Christian- 
ity." They  attempt  to  substitute  the  writings  of  Sweden- 
borg,  and  Andrew  Jackson  Davis,  and  other  religious  bal- 
derdash, in  the  place  of  this  old  Bible.  I  have  in  my 
house  a  book  which  was  used  in  this  very  city  in  the  pub- 
lic service  of  spiritualists.  It  is  well  worn  with  much 
service.  I  open  that  book,  and  it  says,  "  What  is  our  bap- 
tism? Answer,  Frequent  ablutions  of  water.  What  is 
our  inspiration  ?  Plenty  of  fresh  air  and  sunlight.  What 
is  our  prayer?  Abundant  phj^sical  exercise.  What  is  our 
love-feast?  A  clear  conscience  and  sound  sleep."  And  I 
find  from  the  same  book  that  the  chief  item  in  their  pub- 
lic worship  is  gjannastic  exercise;  and  that  whenever  they 
want  to  rouse  up  their  souls  to  a  very  high  pitch  of  devo- 
tion they  sing  page  sixty-five,  "The  night  has  gathered  up 
her  moonlit  fi-inges;"  or  page  sixteen,  "Come  to  the 
woods,  heigh-ho !"  You  say  you  are  not  such  a  fool  as 
that;  but  3^ou  will  be  if  you  keep  on  in  the  track  in  which 
you  have  started. 


THE  EELiaiOX  OF  GHOSTS.  73 

"But,"  says  some  one,  "wouldn't  it  be  of  advantage  to 
hear  from  the  future  world?  Don't  you  think  it  would 
strengthen  Christians?  There  are  a  great  many  materi- 
alists who  do  not  believe  there  are  souls;  but  if  spirits 
from  the  future  world  should  knock  and  talk  over  to  us, 
we  would  all  be  persuaded."  To  that  I  answer  in  the  ring- 
ing words  of  the  Sou  of  God,  "  If  they  believe  not  Moses 
and  the  prophets,  neither  will  they  be  persuaded  though 
one  rose  from  the  dead." 

Now  I  believe,  under  God,  that  this  sermon  will  save 
many  from  disease,  insanity,  and  perdition.  I  believe  these 
are  the  days  of  which  the  apostle  spake  when  he  said,  "  In 
the  latter  times  some  shall  depart  from  the  faith,  giving 
heed  to  seducing  spirits."  I  think  my  audience,  as  well  as 
other  audiences  in  this  day,  need  to  have  reiterated  in  their 
hearing  the  passages  I  quoted  some  minutes  ago,  "There 
shall  not  be  among  you  a  consulter  of  familiar  spirits,  or 
a  wizard,  or  a  necromancer;  for  they  that  do  these  things 
are  an  abomination  unto  the  Lord;"  and  "The  soul  that 
turneth  after  such  as  have  fiimiliar  spirits,  and  after  wiz- 
ards, I  will  even  set  my  llice  against  that  soul,  and  will 
cut  him  off  from  among  his  people." 

But  I  invite  you  this  morning  to  a  Christian  seance,  a 
noonday  seance.  This  congregation  is  only  one  great  fam- 
ily. Here  is  the  church  table.  Come  around  the  church 
table,  take  your  seats  for  this  great  Christian  stance,  put 
your  Bible  on  the  table,  put  your  hands  on  the  top  of  the 
Bible,  and  then  listen,  and  hear  if  there  are  any  voices 
coming  fi-om  tlie  eternal  world.  I  tliink  there  are.  Listen  I 
"Secret  things  belong  unto  the  Lord  our  God,  but  those 
things  which  are  revealed  belong  unto  us  and  to  our  chil- 
dren."    Surely  that  is  a  voice  from  the  spirit-world !     But, 

4  ^ 


74  THE  RELIGION  OF  GHOSTS. 

before  you  rise  from  tliis  Christian  seance,  I  want  you  tc 
promise  me  j^ou  will  be  satisfied  with  the  Divine  revelation 
until  the  light  of  the  Eternal  Throne  breaks  upon  3'our  vis- 
ion. Do  not  go  after  the  Witch  of  En-dor.  Do  not  sit 
down  at  table-rappings,  eitlicr  in  sport  or  in  dead  earnest. 
Have  your  tables  so  well  made  and  their  legs  so  even  that 
they  will  not  tip  and  rattle.  If  the  table  must  move,  let 
it  be  under  the  offices  of  industrious  housewifery.  Teach 
your  children  there  are  no  ghosts  to  be  seen  or  heard  in 
this  world  save  those  which  walk  on  two  feet  or  four,  hu- 
man or  bestial.  Eemember  that  spiritualism  ^at  the  best 
is  a  useless  thing ;  for  if  it  tells  what  the  Bible  reveals  it  is 
a  superfluity,  and  if  it  tells  what  the  Bible  does  not  reveal 
it  is  a  lie.  Instead  of  going  out  to  get  other  people  to 
tell  your  fortune,  tell  your  own  fortune  by  putting  3'our 
trust  in  God  and  doing  the  best  you  can.  I  will  tell  your 
fortune :  "All  things  work  together  for  good  to  them  who 
love  God."  Insult  not  your  departed  friends  by  asking 
them  to  come  down  and  scrabble  under  an  extension-table. 
Eemember  that  there  is  only  one  Spirit  whose  dictation 
you  have  a  right  to  invoke,  and  that  is  the  hol}^,  blessed, 
and  omnipotent  Spirit  of  God.  Ilark!  He  is  rapping 
now,  not  on  a  table  or  the  floor,  but  rapping  on  the  door 
of  your  heart;  and  every  rap  is  an  invitation  to  Christ  and 
a  warning  of  judgment  to  come.  Oh,  grieve  him  not  awaj- ! 
Quench  him  not.  lie  has  been  all  around  you  this  morn- 
ing. He  was  all  around  3'ou  last  night.  He  has  been 
around  you  all  your  lives.  Hark !  There  comes  a  voice 
dropping  through  the  roof,  breaking  through  the  window, 
filling  all  this  house  from  door  to  door  and  from  floor  to 
ceiling  with  tender  and  overmastering  intonation,  saying, 
"My  spirit  shall  not  always  strive." 


s^^o^\'-^yAT£E  axd  alkali  insufficient.  75 


SNOW-WATER  AND  ALKALI  INSUFFICIENT. 

"  If  I  wash  myself  with  snow-water,  and  should  I  cleanse  my  hands  in 
alkali,  yet  shall  thou  plunge  me  in  the  ditch,  and  mine  own  clothes  shall  ab- 
hor me." — Job  ix.,  30,  31. 

ALBERT  BARNES— bonorcd  be  his  name  on  earth 
and  in  lieaven — went  straight  back  to  the  original 
writing  of  my  text,  and  translated  it  as  I  have  now  quoted 
it,  giving  substantial  reasons  for  so  doing.  Athough  we 
know  better,  the  ancients  had  an  idea  that  in  snow-water 
there  was  a  special  power  to  cleanse,  and  that  a  garment 
washed  and  rinsed  in  it  would  be  as  clean  as  clean  could 
be;  but  if  the  plain  snow-water  failed  to  do  its  work,  then 
they  would  take  lye  or  alkali  and  mix  it  with  oil,  and 
under  that  preparation  they  felt  that  the  last  impurity 
would  certainly  be  gone.  Job,  in  my  text,  in  most  force- 
ful figure  sets  forth  the  idea  that  all  his  attempts  to  make 
himself  pure  before  God  were  a  dead  failure,  and  that, 
unless  we  are  abluted  by  something  better  than  earthly 
liquids  and  chemical  preparations,  we  are  loathsome  and  in 
the  ditch.  "  If  I  wash  m3'sclf  with  snow-water,  and  should 
I  cleanse  my  hands  in  alkali,  yet  shalt  thou  plunge  me  ia 
the  ditch,  and  mine  own  clothes  shall  abhor  me." 

You  are  now  sitting  for  your  picture.  I  turn  the  cam- 
era obscnra  of  God's  word  full  upon  3'ou,  and  I  pray  that 
the  sunshine  falling  through  the  sky-light  may  enable  me 
to  take  you  just  as  you  are.  Shall  it  be  a  flattering  pict- 
ure, or  shall  it  be  a  true  one?     You  say,  "  Let  it  be  a 


76  SJVOW-WATliJE  AND  ALKALI  INUVFFICIENT. 

true  one."  The  first  profile  that  was  ever  taken  was  taken, 
three  hundred  and  thirty  years  before  Christ,  of  Antigonus. 
He  had  a  blind  eye,  and  he  compelled  the  artist  to  take  his 
profile  so  as  to  hide  the  defect  in  his  vision.  But  since 
that  invention,  three  hundred  and  thirty  years  before 
Christ,  there  have  been  a  great  many  profiles.  Shall  I  to- 
night give  3'ou  a  one-sided  view  of  yourselves,  a  profile? 
or  shall  it  be  a  full-length  portrait,  showing  you  how  you 
stand  before  heaven  and  earth  and  hell?  If  God  will 
help  me  by  his  almighty  grace,  I  shall  give  you  that  last 
kind  of  a  picture. 

When  I  first  entered  the  ministry,  I  used  to  write  my 
sermons  all  out  and  read  them,  and  run  my  hand  along 
the  line  lest  I  should  lose  my  place.  I  have  hundreds  of 
those  manuscripts.  Shall  I  ever  preach  them?  Never; 
for  in  those  days  I  was  somehow  overmastered  with  the 
idea  I  heard  talked  all  around  about  of  the  dignity  of  hu- 
man nature,  and  I  adopted  the  idea,  and  I  evolved  it,  and 
I  illustrated  it,  and  I  argued  it ;  but  coming  on  in  life,  and 
having  seen  more  of  the  world,  and  studied  better  my  Bible, 
I  find  that  that  early  teaching  was  faulty,  and  that  there  is 
no  dignity  in  human  nature,  until  it  is  reconstructed  by 
the  grace  of  God.  Talk  about  vessels  going  to  pieces  on 
the  Skerries,  off  Ireland  !  There  never  was  such  a  ship- 
wreck as  in  the  Gihon  and  the  Hiddekel,  rivers  of  Eden, 
where  our  first  parents  foundered.  Talk  of  a  steamer  go- 
ing down  with  five  hundred  passengers  on  board!  What 
is  that  to  the  shipwreck  of  twelve  hundred  million  souls? 
We  are  by  nature  a  mass  of  uncleanness  and  putrefaction, 
from  which  it  takes  all  the  omnipotence  and  infinitude 
of  God's  grace  to  extricate  us.  "If  I  wash  myself  with 
snow-water,  and  should  I  cleanse  my  hands  in  alkali,  j'ct 


SNOW-WATm  .L\D  ALKALI  IXSUFFICIENT.  77 

shalt  thou  plunge  me  in  the  ditch,  and  mine  own  clothes 
shall  abhor  me." 

I  remark,  in  the  first  place,  that  some  people  try  to 
cleanse  their  soul  of  sin  in  the  snow-water  o^ fine  apologies. 
Here  is  one  man  who  says,  "I  am  a  sinner;  I  confess  that: 
but  I  inherited  this.  My  father  was  a  sinner,  my  grandfa- 
ther, my  great-great-grandfather,  and  all  the  way  back  to 
Adam,  and  I  couldn't  help  myself."  M}^  brother,  have  you 
not,  every  day  in  your  life,  added  something  to  the  original 
estate  of  sin  that  was  bequeathed  to  you  ?  Are  you  not 
brave  enough  to  confess  that  you  have  sometimes  surren- 
dei'cd  to  sin,  which  you  ought  to  have  conquered?  I  ask 
you  whether  it  is  fair  play  to  put  upon  our  ancestry  things 
for  which  we  ourselves  are  personally  responsible  ?  If 
your  nature  was  askew  when  you  got  it,  have  you  not 
sometimes  given  it  an  additional  twist?  Will  all  the  tomb- 
stones of  those  wdio  have  preceded  us  make  a  barricade 
liigh  enough  for  eternal  defenses?  I  know  a  devout  man 
■who  had  blasphemous  parentage.  I  know  an  honest  man 
•whose  father  was  a  thief.  I  know  a  pure  man  whose 
mother  was  a  waif  of  the  street.  The  hereditary  tide  may 
be  very  strong,  but  there  is  such  a  thing  as  stemming  it. 
The  fact  that  I  have  a  corrupt  nature  is  no  reason  why  I 
should  yield  to  it.  The  deep  stains  of  our  soul  can  nev- 
er be  washed  out  by  the  snow-water  of  such  insufficient 
apology. 

Still  further,  says  some  one,  "If  I  have  gone  into  sin,  it 
has  been  through  my  companions,  my  comrades,  and  asso- 
ciates;  they  ruined  me.  They  taught  me  to  drink.  They 
took  me  to  the  gambling-hell.  They  plunged  me  into  the 
house  of  sin.  They  ruined  my  soul."  I  do  not  believe  it. 
God  gave  to  no  one  the  power  to  destroy  you  or  me.     If 


78  SNOW-WATEJi  AND  ALKALI  INSUFFICIENT. 

a  man  is  destroj^ed,  be  is  self-destroyed,  and  that  is  always 
so.  Why  did  you  not  break  away  from  them  ?  If  they 
had  tried  to  steal  your  purse,  you  would  have  knocked 
them  down ;  if  they  had  tried  to  purloin  your  gold  watch, 
you  would  have  riddled  them  with  shot;  but  when  they 
tried  to  steal  your  immortal  soul,  you  placidly  submitted 
to  it.  Those  bad  fellows  have  a  cup  of  fire  to  drink;  do 
not  pour  your  cup  into  it.  In  this  matter  of  the  soul,  ev- 
eiy  man  for  himself  That  those  persons  are  not  fully  re- 
sponsible for  your  sin,  I  prove  by  the  fact  that  you  still 
consort  with  them.  Your  affinities  are  with  them  ;  you 
stay  with  them,  and  there  is  some  prospect  that  you  will 
stay  with  them  forever.  Perhaps  you  may  have  adjoining 
dungeons.  Perhaps  you  may  be  fastened  to  opposite  ends 
of  the  same  chain.  Perhaps  you  may  carry  different  parts 
of  the  same  groan.  You  can  not  get  off  by  blaming  them. 
Though  you  gather  up  all  these  apologies ;  though  there 
were  a  great  flood  of  them ;  though  they  should  come 
down  with  the  force  of  the  melting  snows  from  Lebanon 
and  the  -Himalayas,  they  could  not  wash  out  one  stain  of 
your  immortal  soul. 

Still  further,  some  persons  apologize  for  their  sins  by  say- 
ing, "  We  are  a  great  deal  better  than  some  people.  You 
see  people  all  around  about  us  that  are  a  great  deal  worse 
than  we."  You  stand  up  columnar  in  your  integritj^,  and 
look  down  upon  those  who  are  prostrate  in  their  habits  and 
crimes.  What  of  that,  my  brother?  If  I  failed  through 
recklessness  and  wicked  imprudence  for  ten  thousand  dol- 
lars, is  the  matter  alleviated  at  all  by  the  fact  that  some- 
body else  has  failed  for  one  hundred  thousand  dollars,  and 
somebody  else  for  two  hundred  thousand  dollars?  Oh  no. 
If  I  have  the  neuralgia,  shall  I  refuse  medical  attendance 


SXOW-WATEJi  AND  ALKALI  h\SUJ'FJfIL\\T.  79 

because  my  neighbor  has  vii'ulent  typhoid  fever?  The 
fact  that  his  disease  is  worse  than  mine — does  that  cure 
mine?  If  I,  through  my  foolhardiness,  leap  off  into  eternal 
woe,  does  it  break  the  fall  to  know  that  others  leap  off  a 
higher  cliff  into  deeper  darkness  ?  When  the  Hudson 
Eiver  rail-train  went  through  the  bridge  at  Spuyten  Duy- 
vel,  did  it  alleviate  the  matter  at  all  that  instead  of  two  or 
three  people  being  hurt  there  were  seventy-five  mangled 
and  crushed?  Because  others  are  depraved,  is  that  any 
excuse  for  my  depi'avity?  Am  I  better  than  they  ?  Per- 
haps they  had  worse  temptations  than  I  have  had.  Per- 
haps their  surroundings  in  life  were  more  overpowering. 
Perhaps,  O  man,  if  you  had  been  under  the  same  stress 
of  temptation,  instead  of  sitting  here  to-night,  you  would 
have  been  looking  through  the  bars  of  a  penitentiary. 
Perhaps,  O  woman,  if  j-ou  had  been  under  the  same  power 
of  temptation,  instead  of  sitting  here  to-night,  you  would 
be  tramping  the  street,  the  laughing-stock  of  men  and  the 
grief  of  the  angels  of  God,  dungeoned,  body,  mind,  and  soul, 
in  the  blackness  of  despair.  Ah,  do  not  let  us  solace  our- 
selves with  the  thought  that  other  people  are  worse  than 
we.  Perhaps  in  the  future,  when  our  fortunes  may  change, 
unless  God  prevents  it,  we  may  be  worse  than  they  are. 
Many  a  man  after  thirt}'-  years,  after  forty  years,  after  fifty 
years,  after  sixty  years,  has  gone  to  pieces  on  the  sand-bars. 
Oil !  instead  of  wasting  our  time  in  hypercriticism  about 
others,  let  us  ask  ourselves  the  questions,  Where  do  we 
stand?  what  are  ow-  sins?  what  are  our  deficits?  what  are 
our  perils?  what  our  hopes?  Let  each  one  say  to  himself, 
"Where  will  I  be?  Shall  I  range  in  summery  fields,  or 
grind  in  the  mills  of  a  great  night?  Shall  it  be  anthem 
or  shriek?  Shall  it  be  with  God  or  fiends?  Where? 
Where?"' 


80  SNOW-WATEE  AND  ALKALI  INSUFFICIENT. 

Some  ■winter  morning  you  go  out  and  see  a  snow-bank 
in  graceful  drifts,  as  though  by  some  heavenly  compass  it 
had  been  curved  ;  and  as  the  sun  glints  it  the  lustre  is  al- 
most insufferable,  and  it  seems  as  if  God  had  wrapped  the 
earth  in  a  shroud  with  white  plaits  woven  in  looms  celes- 
tial. And  you  sa}',  "Was  there  ever  any  thing  so  pure  as 
the  snow,  so  beautiful  as  the  snow?"  But  you  brought  a 
pail  of  that  snow,  and  put  it  upon  the  stove  and  melted  it ; 
and  you  found  that  there  was  a  sediment  at  the  bottom,  and 
every  drop  of  that  snow-water  was  riled;  and  you  found 
that  the  snow-bank  had  gathered  up  the  impurity  of  the 
field,  and  that,  after  all,  it  was  not  fit  to  wash  in.  And  so 
I  say  it  will  be  if  you  try  to  gather  up  these  contrasts  and 
comparisons  with  othei's,  and  with  these  aj^ologics  attempt 
to  wash  out  the  sins  of  your  heart  and  life.  It  will  be  an 
unsuccessful  ablution.  Such  snow-water  will  never  wash 
away  a  single  stain  of  an  immortal  soul. 

But  I  hear  some  one  say,  "I  will  try  something  better 
than  that.  I  will  try  the  force  of  a  good  resolution.  That 
■will  be  more  pungent,  more  caustic,  more  extirpating,  more 
cleansing.  The  snow-water  has  failed,  and  now  I  will  try 
the  alkali  of  a  good,  strong  resolution."  My  dear  brother, 
have  you  any  idea  that  a  resolution  about  the  future  will 
liquidate  the  past?  Suppose  I  owed  you  five  thousand 
dollars,  and  I  should  come  to  you  to-morrow,  and  say, 
"Sir,  I  wnll  never  run  in  debt  to  3'ou  again;  if  I  should 
live  thirty  years,  I  will  never  run  in  debt  to  you  again;" 
will  you  turn  to  me  and  say,  "If  you  will  not  run  in  debt 
in  the  future,  I  will  forgive  you  the  five  thousand  dollars." 
Will  you  do  that?  No!  Nor  will  God.  We  have  been 
running  up  a  long  score  of  indebtedness  with  God.  If  for 
the  future  we  should  abstain  from  sin,  that  would  be  no 


SXOW-WATEIi  AXD  ALKALI  IXSUFFICIENT.  81 

defrayment  of  past  indebtedness.  Tbough  you  should  live 
from  this  time  fortb  pure  as  an  archangel  before  the  throne, 
that  would  not  redeem  the  past.  God,  in  the  Bible,  dis- 
tinctly declares  that  he  "will  require  that  which  is  past" 
— past  opportunities,  past  neglects,  past  wicked  words,  past 
impure  imaginations,  past  every  thing.  The  past  is  a  great 
cemetery,  and  every  day  is  buried  in  it.  And  here  is  a 
long  row  of  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  graves.  They 
are  the  dead  days  of  1873.  Here  is  a  long  row  of  three 
hundred  and  sixty-five  more  graves,  and  the}^  are  the  dead 
days  of  1872.  And  here  is  a  long  row  of  three  hundred 
and  sixty-five  more  graves,  and  the}'"  are  the  dead  daj's  of 
1871.  It  is  a  vast  cemetery  of  the  past.  But  God  will 
rouse  them  all  up  with  resurrectionary  blast,  and  as  the 
prisoner  stands  face  to  face  with  juror  and  judge,  so  yon. 
and  I  will  have  to  come  up  and  look  upon  those  departed 
days  face  to  flice,  exulting  in  their  smile  or  cowering  in 
their  frown. 

"Murder  will  out"  is  a  proverb  that  stops  too  short. 
Every  sin,  however  small  as  well  as  great,  will  out.  In 
hard  times  in  England,  years  ago,  it  is  authentically  stated 
that  a  manufacturer  was  on  the  way,  with  a  bag  of  monej^, 
to  pay  off  his  hands.  A  man  infuriated  with  hunger  met 
him  on  the  road,  and  took  a  rail  with  a  nail  in  it  from  a 
paling  fence,  and  struck  him  down,  and  the  nail  entering 
the  skull  instantly  slew  him.  Thirty  years  after  that  the 
murderer  went  back  to  that  place.  He  passed  into  the 
grave -yard,  where  the  sexton  was  digging  a  grave,  and 
while  he  stood  there  the  spade  of  the  sexton  turned  up  a 
skull,  and,  lo !  the  murderer  saw  a  nail  protruding  from 
the  back  part  of  the  skull ;  and  as  the  sexton  turned  the 
skull,  it  seemed  with  hollow  eyes  to  glare  on  the  murderer; 

4* 


82  SNOW-WATUS  AND  ALKALI  INSUFFICIENT. 

and  he,  first  petrified  with  horror,  stood  in  silence,  but 
soon  cried  out,  "  Guilty  !  guilty  !  0  God !"  The  mystery 
of  the  crime  was  over.  The  man  was  tried  and  executed. 
My  friends,  all  the  unpardoned  sins  of  our  lives,  though 
we  may  think  they  are  buried  out  of  sight  and  gone  into 
a  mere  skeleton  of  memory,  will  turn  up  in  the  cemetery 
of  the  past,  and  glower  upon  us  with  their  misdoings.  I 
say  all  our  unpardoned  sins.  Oh,  have  you  done  the  pre- 
posterous thing  of  supposing  that  good  resolutions  for  the 
future  will  wipe  out  the  past?  Good  resolutions,  though 
they  may  be  pungent  and  caustic  as  alkali,  have  no  power 
to  neutralize  a  sin,  have  no  power  to  wash  away  a  trans- 
gression. It  wants  something  more  than  earthly  chem- 
istry to  do  this.  Yea,  yea,  though  "I  wash  myself  with 
snow-water,  and  should  I  cleanse  my  hands  in  alkali,  yet 
shalt  thou  plunge  me  in  the  ditch,  and  mine  own  clothes 
shall  abhor  me." 

You  see  from  the  last  part  of  this  text  that  Job's  idea 
of  sin  was  very  different  from  that  of  Lord  Byron,  or  Eu- 
gene Sue,  or  George  Sand,  or  M.  J.  Michelet,  or  any  of  the 
hundreds  of  writers  who  have  done  up  iniquity  in  mezzo- 
tint, and  garlanded  the  wine-cup  with  eglantine  and  rose- 
mary, and  made  the  path  of  the  libertine  end  in  bowers 
of  ease  instead  of  on  the  hot  flagging  of  infernal  torture. 
You  see  that  Job  thinks  that  sin  is  not  a  flowery  parterre ; 
that  it  is  not  a  table-land  of  fine  prospects ;  that  it  is  not 
music,  dulcimer,  violoncello,  castanet,  and  Pandean  pipes, 
all  making  music  together.  No.  He  says  it  is  a  ditch, 
long,  deep,  loathsome,  stenchful,  and  we  are  all  plunged 
into  it,  and  there  we  wallow  and  sink  and  struggle,  not 
able  to  get  out.  Our  robes  of  propriety  and  robes  of 
worldly  profession  are  saturated  in  the  slime  and  abomina- 


SNOW-WATER  AXD  ALKALI  INSUFFICIENT.  83 

tion,  and  our  soul,  covered  over  with  transgression,  bates 
its  covering,  and  the  covering  hates  the  soul,  until  we  are 
plunged  into  the  ditch,  and  our  own  clothes  abhor  us, 

I  know  that  some  modern  religionists  caricature  sorrow 
for  sin,  and  they  make  out  an  easier  path  than  the  "  pil- 
grim's progress"  that  John  Bunyan  dreamed  of.  The 
road  they  travel  does  not  start  where  John's  did,  at  the 
city  of  Destruction,  but  at  the  gate  of  the  universitj'- ;  and 
I  am  very  certain  that  it  will  not  come  out  where  John's 
did,  under  the  shining  ramparts  of  the  celestial  city.  No 
repentance,  no  pardon.  If  you  do  not,  my  brother,  feel 
that  you  are  down  in  the  ditch,  what  do  you  w\nnt  of 
Christ  to  lift  you  out?  If  you  have  no  appreciation  of 
the  fact  that  you  are  astray,  what  do  you  want  of  Him  wdio 
came  to  seek  and  save  that  which  w^is  lost?  Yonder  is 
the  Scotia,  the  swiftest  of  the  Cunarders,  coming  across  the 
Atlantic.  The  wind  is  abaft,  so  that  she  has  not  only  her 
engines  at  work,  but  all  sails  up.  I  am  on  board  the 
/S/x/m,  of  the  National  line.  The  boat-davits  are  swung 
around.  The  boat  is  lowered.  I  get  into  it  with  a  red 
flag,  and  cross  over  to  where  the  Scotia  is  coming,  and  I 
wave  the  flng.  The  captain  looks  off  from  the  bridge,  and 
says,  "What  do  you  want?"  I  reply,  "I  come  to  take 
some  of  3' our  passengers  across  to  the  other  vessel;  I  think 
they  will  be  safer  and  happier  there."  The  captain  would 
look  down  with  indignation  and  say,  "  Get  out  of  the  way, 
or  I  will  run  you  down."  And  then  I  would  back  oars, 
amidst  the  jeering  of  two  or  three  hundred  people  looking 
over  the  taffi'ail.  But  the  S/tain  and  the  Scotia  meet  under 
different  circumstances  after  a  while.  The  Scotia  is  com- 
ing out  of  a  cyclone;  the  life-boats  all  smashed;  the  bul- 
warks gone;  the  wheel  off;  the  vessel  rapidly  going  down. 


84  SNOW-WATFIi  AND  ALKALI  INSUFFICIENT. 

The  boatswain  gives  his  last  whistle  of  despairing  com- 
mand. The  passengers  run  up  and  down  the  deck,  and 
some  pray,  and  all  make  a  great  outcr}^  The  captain 
sajs,  "You  have  about  fifteen  minutes  now  to  prepare  for 
the  next  world."  "No  hope!"  sounds  from  stem  to  stern, 
and  from  the  ratlines  down  to  the  cabin.  I  see  the  dis- 
tress. I  am  let  down  by  the  side  of  the  Spain.  I  push 
off  as  fast  as  I  can  toward  the  sinking  Scotia.  Before  I 
come  up,  people  are  leaping  into  the  water  in  their  anxiety 
to  get  to  the  boat,  and  when  I  have  swung  up  under  the 
side  of  the  Scotia,  the  frenzied  passengers  rush  through  the 
gangway  until  the  ofl&cers,  with  axe  and  clubs  and  pistols, 
try  to  keep  back  tke  crowd,  each  wanting  his  turn  to  come 
next.  There  is  but  one  life-boat,  and  they  all  want  to  get 
into  it,  and  the  cry  is,  "Me  next!  me  next!"  You  see 
the  application  before  I  make  it.  As  long  as  a  man  going 
on  in  his  sin  feels  that  all  is  well,  that  he  is  coming  out  at 
a  beautiful  port,  and  has  all  sail  set,  he  wants  no  Christ,  he 
wants  no  help,  he  wants  no  rescue  ;  but  if  under  the  flash 
of  God's  convicting  spirit  he  shall  see  that  by  reason  of 
sin  he  is  dismasted  and  water-logged,  and  going  down  into 
the  trough  of  a  sea  where  he  can  not  live,  how  soon  he 
puts  the  sea-glass  to  his  eye  and  sweeps  the  horizon,  and 
at  the  first  sign  of  help  cries  out,  "I  want  to  be  saved.  I 
want  to  be  saved  now.  I  want  to  be  saved  forever."  No 
sense  of  danger,  no  application  for  rescue. 

Oh  that  God's  eternal  spirit  would  flash  upon  us  a  sense 
of  our  sinfulness!  The  Bible  tells  the  story  in  letters  of 
fire,  but  we  get  used  to  it.  We  joke  about  sin.  We  make 
merry  over  it.  What  is  sin  ?  Is  it  a  trifling  thing?  Sin 
is  a  vampire  that  is  sucking  out  the  life-blood  of  your  im- 
mortal nature.     Sin  ?     It  is  a  Bastile  that  no  earthly  key 


>'iXU\V- WATER  AND  ALKALI  IXSUFFICILWT.  85 

ever  unlocked.  Sin  ?  It  is  expatriation  from  God  and 
lieaven.  Sin?  It  is  grand  larceny  against  the  Almight\'-, 
for  the  Bible  asks  the  question,  "  Will  a  man  rob  God?" 
answering  it  in  the  affirmative.  This  Gospel  is  a  writ  of 
replevin  to  recover  property  unlawfully  detained  from  God. 

The  bell  at  the  gate  of  Greenwood  tolls.  The  procession 
goes  through,  and  ropes  are  wrapped  around  the  casket, 
and  the  casket  lowered  five  or  six:  feet;  but  the  body  in- 
side the  casket  is  no  more  dead  than  is  every  man  until 
he  has  been  regenerated  by  the  grace  of  God.  It  is  not 
my  say  so,  but  the  Bible,  which  pronounces  us  dead,  dead 
in  trespasses  and  in  sins.  The  maniac  who  puts  around 
his  brow  a  bunch  of  straw,  and  thinks  it  is  a  crown,  and 
holds  in  his  hand  a  stick,  and  thinks  it  is  a  sceptre, 
and  gathers  up  some  pebbles,  and  thinks  they  are  dia- 
monds, is  no  more  beside  himself  than  is  every  one  who 
has  not  accepted  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  as  his  personal 
Saviour;  for  the  Bible,  in  the  parable,  intimates  that  e\erj 
prodigal  is  beside  himself,  in  phantasiii,  in  delirium,  in 
madness. 

In  the  Shetland  Islands  there  is  a  man  with  leprosy.  The 
hollow  of  the  foot  has  swollen  until  it  is  flat  on  the  ground. 
The  joints  begin  to  fall  away.  The  ankle  thickens  until 
it  looks  like  the  foot  of  a  wild  beast.  A  stare  unnatural 
comes  to  the  eye.  The  nostril  is  constricted.  The  voice 
drops  to  an  almost  inaudible  hoarseness.  Tubercles  blotch 
the  whole  body,  and  from  them  there  comes  an  exudation 
that  is  unbearable  to  the  beholder.  That  is  leprosy,  and 
we  have  all  got  it  unless  cleansed  by  the  grace  of  God. 
See  Leviticus.  See  Second  Kings.  See  Mark.  See  Luke. 
See  fifty  Bible  allusions  and  confirmations.  If  these  things 
be  so,  should  I  not  tell  you  ? 


86  SXOW-WATER  AND  ALKALI  INSUFFICIENT. 

The  Bible  is  not  complimentaiy  in  its  language.  It 
does  not  speak  mincingly  about  our  sins.  It  does  not  talk 
apologetically.  There  is  no  vermilion  in  its  style.  It  does 
not  cover  up  our  transgressions  with  blooming  metaphor. 
It  does  not  sing  about  them  in  weak  falsetto;  but  it  thun- 
ders out,  "The  imagination  of  man's  heart  is  evil  from  his 
youth."  "Every  one  has  gone  back.  He  has  altogether 
become  filthy.  He  is  abominable  and  filthy,  and  drinketli 
in  iniquity  like  water."  And  then  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
flings  down  at  our  feet  this  humiliating  catalogue,  "Out 
of  the  heart  of  men  proceed  evil  thoughts,  adulteries,  for- 
nication, murders,  thefts,  blasphemy."  There  is  a  text 
for  your  rationalist  to  preach  from !  Oh,  the  dignity  of 
human  nature!  There  is  an  element  of  your  science  of 
man  that  the  anthropologist  never  has  had  the  courage  yet 
to  touch  ;  and  the  Bible,  in  all  the  ins  and  outs  of  the  most 
forceful  style,  sets  forth  our  natural  pollution,  and  repre- 
sents iniquity  as  a  frightful  thing,  as  an  exhausting  thing, 
as  a  loathsome  thino-.  It  is  not  a  mere  bemirinsj  of  the 
feet,  it  is  not  a  mere  befouling  of  the  hands;  it  is  going 
down,  head  and  ears  under,  in  a  ditch  until  our  own  clothes 
abhor  us. 

My  brethren,  shall  we  stay  down  where  sin  thrusts  us? 
I  shall  not,  if  you  do.  We  can  not  afford  to.  I  have,  to- 
night, to  tell  you  that  there  is  something  purer  than  snow- 
water, something  more  pungent  than  alkali,  and  that  is  the 
blood  of  Jesus  Christ  that  cleanseth  from  all  sin.  Av,  the 
river  of  salvation,  bright,  crystalline,  and  heaven -born, 
rushes  through  this  audience  with  billowy  tide  strong 
enough  to  wash  your  sins  completely  and  forever  away. 
O  Jesus !  let  the  dam  that  holds  it  back  now  break,  and  the 
floods  of  salvation  roll  over  us. 


,Syo\V-\VATL'n  AXD  ALKALI  IXSUFFICIEXT.  87 

"Let  the  water  and  tlie  blond, 
From  thy  side  a  healing  flood, 
Be  of  sin  tiie  double  cure, 
Save  from  wrath  and  make  me  pure." 

0  sinner!  get  down  on  both  knees  and  bathe  in  that  flood 
of  mercy.  Ay,  strike  out  with  both  hands,  and  try  to 
swim  to  the  other  shore  of  this  I'iver  of  God's  grace.  To 
you  is  the  word  of  this  salvation  sent.  Take  this  largess 
of  the  Divine  bounty.  Though  you  have  gone  down  in 
the  deepest  ditch  of  libidinous  desire  and  corrupt  behavior, 
though  you  have  sworn  all  blasphemies  until  there  is  not 
one  sinful  word  left  for  you  to  speak,  though  you  have 
been  submerged  by  the  transgressions  of  a  life-time,  though 
you  are  so  far  down  in  your  sin  tliat  no  earthly  help  can 
touch  your  case — the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  bends  over  n'ou  to- 
m'ght,  and  offers  you  his  right  hand,  proposing  to  lift  you 
up,  first  making  you  whiter  than  snow,  and  then  raising 
you  to  glories  that  never  die.  "  Billy,"  said  a  Christian 
boot-black  to  another,  "  wiicn  we  come  up  to  heaven  it 
won't  make  any  difference  that  we've  been  boot-blacks  here, 
for  we  shall  get  in,  not  somehow  or  other,  but,  Billy,  wc 
shall  get  straight  through  the  gate."  Oli,  if  you  only  knew 
how  full  and  free  and  tender  is  the  offer  of  Christ,  this 
night  you  would  all  take  him  without  one  single  exception  ; 
and  if  all  the  doors  of  this  house  were  locked  save  one,  and 
you  were  compelled  to  make  egress  by  onl}'-  one  door,  and 

1  stood  there  and  questioned  you,  and  the  Gospel  of  Christ 
had  made  the  right  impression  upon  your  heart  to-night, 
you  would  answer  me  as  you  went  out,  one  and  all,  "Jesus 
is  mine,  and  I  am  his!"  Oh,  that  this  might  be  the  night 
when  you  would  receive  him !  It  is  not  a  Gospel  merely 
for  foot-pads  and  vagrants  and  buccaneers;  it  is  for  the 


88  iSXOW-WATEIi  AND  ALKALI  INSUFFICIENT. 

highly  polished  and  the  educated  and  the  refined  as  well. 
"Except  a  man  be  born  again,  he  can  not  see  the  kingdom 
of  God."  Wliatever  may  be  your  associations,  and  what- 
ever your  worldly  refinements,  I  must  tell  you,  as  before 
God  I  expect  to  answer  in  the  last  daj^,  that  if  you  are  not 
changed  by  the  grace  of  God,  you  are  still  down  in  the 
ditch  of  sin,  in  the  ditch  of  sorrow,  in  the  ditch  of  condem- 
nation ;  a  ditch  that  empties  into  a  deeper  ditch,  the  ditch 
of  the  lost.  But  blessed  be  God  for  the  lifting,  cleansing, 
lustrating  power  of  his  Gospel. 

"The  voice  of  free  grace  cries,  Escape  to  the  mountain; 
For  all  that  believe  Christ  has  opened  a  fountain. 
Hallelujah  !   to  the  Lamb  who  hath  bought  us  our  pardon; 
We'll  praise  him  again  when  we  pass  over  Jordan." 


UTIiirPIAO  THE  ULAIN.  89 


STRIPPING  THE  SLAIK 

"And  it  came  to  pass  on  tlie  morrow,  when  the  Pliilistines  came  to  strip 
the  slain,  that  they  found  Saul  and  his  three  sons  fallen  in  Mount  Gilboa." — 
1  Samuel  xxxi.,  8. 

SOME  of  3'ou  were  at  South  Mountain,  or  Shilob,  or 
Ball's  Blulf,  or  Gettj^sburg,  and  I  ask  you  if  there  is 
any  sadder  sight  than  a  battle -fiehl  after  the  guns  have 
stopped  firing?  I  walked  across  the  field  of  Antietam 
just  after  the  conflict.  The  scene  was  so  sickening  I  shall 
not  describe  it.  Every  valuable  thing  had  been  taken 
from  the  bodies  of  the  dead,  for  there  are  always  vultures 
hovering  over  and  around  about  an  arm3^  and  they  pick 
up  the  watches,  and  the  memorandum-books,  and  the  let- 
ters, and  the  daguerreotypes,  and  the  hats,  and  the  coats, 
api^lying  them  to  their  own  uses.  The  dead  make  no  re- 
sistance. So  there  are  always  camp  followers  going  on 
after  an  army,  as  when  Scott  went  down  into  Mexico,  as 
\\\\Q\\  Napoleon  marched  up  toward  Moscow,  as  when  Yon 
Moltke  went  to  Sedan.  There  is  a  similar  scene  in  my 
text.  Saul  and  his  army  had  been  horribly  cut  to  pieces. 
!Mount  Gilboa  was  ghastly  with  the  dead.  On  the  mor- 
row the  stragglers  came  on  to  the  field,  and  they  lifted  the 
latchct  of  the  helmet  from  under  the  chin  of  the  dead,  and 
they  picked  up  the  swords  and  bent  them  on  their  knee  to 
test  the  temper  of  the  metal,  and  they  opened  the  wallets 
and  counted  the  coin.  Saul  lay  dead  along  the  ground, 
eight  or  nine  feet  in  length,  and  I  suppose  the  cowardly 


90  STPdPPING   THE  SLAIN. 

Philistines,  to  sliow  their  braverj',  leaped  upon  the  trunk 
of  his  carcass,  and  jeered  at  the  fallen  slain,  and  whistled 
through  the  mouth  of  the  helmet.  Before  night,  those 
cormorants  had  taken  every  thing  valuable  from  the  field. 
"And  it  came  to  pass  on  the  morrow,  when  the  Philistines 
came  to  strip  the  slain,  that  they  found  Saul  and  his  three 
sons  fallen  in  Mount  Gilboa." 

Before  I  get  through  to-night,  I  will  show  you  that  the 
same  process  is  going  on  all  the  world  over,  and  every 
day ;  and  that  when  men  have  fallen,  Satan  and  the  woi'ld, 
so  far  from  pitying  them  or  helping  them,  go  to  work  re- 
morselessly to  take  what  little  is  left,  thus  strijjping  the 
slain. 

There  are  tens  of  thousands  of  young  men  every  3'ear 
coming  from  the  country  to  our  great  cities.  They  come 
with  brave  hearts  and  grand  expectations.  They  think 
they  will  be  Rufus  Choates  in  the  law,  or  Drapers  in  chem- 
istry, or  A.  T.  Stewarts  in  merchandise.  The  country  lads 
sit  down  in  the  village  grocery,  with  their  feet  on  the  iron 
rod  around  the  red-hot  stove  in  the  evening,  talking  over 
the  prospects  of  the  young  man  who  has  gone  off  to  the 
city.  Two  or  three  of  them  think  that  perhaps  he  may 
get  along  very  well  and  succeed,  but  the  most  of  them 
prophesy  failure;  for  it  is  very  hard  to  think  that  those 
whom  we  knew  in  bo3'hood  will  ever  make  any  stir  in  the 
world.  But  our  young  man  has  a  fine  position  in  a  dr}''- 
goods  store.  The  month  is  over.  He  gets  his  wages.  He 
is  not  accustomed  to  have  so  much  money  belonging  to 
himself.  He  is  a  little  excited,  and  does  not  exactly  know 
what  to  do  with  it,  and  he  spends  it  in  some  places  where 
he  ought  not.  Soon  there  come  up  new  companions  and 
acquaintances  from  the  bar-rooms  and  the  saloons  of  the 


STRIPPIXO   THE  SLAIN.  91 

city.  Soon  tliat  young  man  begins  to  waver  in  tlic  battle 
of  temptation,  and  soon  his  soul  goes  down.  In  a  few 
months,  or  few  years,  he  has  fallen.  He  is  morally  dead. 
lie  is  a  mere  corpse  of  what  he  once  was.  The  harpies 
of  sin  snuff  up  the  taint  and  come  on  the  field.  His  gar- 
ments gradually  give  out.  He  has  pawned  his  watch. 
His  health  is  failing  him.  His  credit  perishes.  He  is  too 
poor  to  stay  in  the  city,  and  he  is  too  poor  to  pay  his  way 
home  to  the  country.  Down!  down!  Why  do  the  low 
fellows  of  the  city  now  stick  to  him  so  closely?  Is  it  to 
help  him  back  to  a  moral  and  spiiitual  life?  Oh  no.  I 
will  tell  you  why  they  stay  ;  they  are  the  Philistines  strip- 
ping the  slain. 

Do  not  look  where  I  point,  but  yonder  stands  a  man 
who  once  had  a  beautiful  home  in  this  city.  His  house 
had  elegant  furniture,  his  children  were  beautifully  clad, 
his  name  was  S3'nonymous  with  honor  and  usefulness;  but 
evil  habit  knocked  at  his  front  door,  knocked  at  his  back 
door,  knocked  at  his  parlor  door,  knocked  at  his  bedroom 
door.  "Where  is  the  piano?  Sold  to  pay  the  rent.  Wiiere 
is  the  hat-rack?  Sold  to  meet  the  butcher's  bill.  Where 
are  the  carpets  ?  Sold  to  get  bread.  W^here  is  the  ward- 
robe? Sold  to  get  rum.  Where  are  the  daughters? 
Working  their  fingers  off  in  trying  to  keep  the  family  to- 
gether. Worse  and  worse,  until  every  thing  is  gone.  Who 
is  that  going  up  the  front  steps  of  that  house?  That  is 
a  creditor,  hoping  to  find  some  chair  or  bed  that  has  not 
been  levied  upon.  Who  are  those  two  gentlemen  now  go- 
ng up  the  front  steps?  The  one  is  a  constable,  the  other 
s  the  sheriff.  Why  do  they  go  there?  The  unfortunate 
s  morally  dead,  socially  dead,  financially  dead.  Why  do 
they  go  there?     I  will  tell  you  why  the  creditors  and  the 


92  STIUPPING   THE  SLAIN. 

constables  and  the  sheriffs  go  there.  They  are,  some  on 
their  own  account  and  some  on  account  of  the  law,  strip- 
ping the  slain. 

An  ex-member  of  Congress,  one  of  the  most  eloquent 
men  that  ever  stood  in  the  House  of  Eepresentatives,  said, 
in  his  last  moments,  "  This  is  the  end.  I  am  dying — dy- 
ing on  a  borrowed  bed,  covered  by  a  borrowed  sheet,  in  a 
house  built  by  public  charity.  Bury  me  under  that  tree 
in  the  middle  of  the  field,  where  I  shall  not  be  crowded, 
for  I  have  been  crowded  all  my  life."  Where  were  the 
jolly  politicians  and  the  dissipating  comrades  who  had 
been  with  him,  laughing  at  his  jokes,  applauding  his  elo- 
quence, and  plunging  him  into  sin?  They  have  left. 
Why?  His  money  is  gone,  his  reputation  is  gone,  his  wit 
is  gone,  his  clothes  are  gone,  every  thing  is  gone.  W^hy 
should  they  stay  any  longer?  They  have  completed  their 
•work.     They  have  stripped  the  slain. 

There  is  another  way,  however,  of  doing  that  same  work. 
Here  is  a  man  who,  through  his  sin,  is  prostrate.  He  ac- 
knowledges that  he  has  done  wrong.  Now  is  the  time 
for  you  to  go  to  that  man,  and  say,  "  Thousands  of  people 
have  been  as  far  astray  as  you  are,  and  got  back."  Now  is 
the  time  for  j^ou  to  go  to  that  man,  and  tell  him  of  the  om- 
nipotent gi'ace  of  Gotl  that  is  sufficient  for  any  poor  soul. 
Now  is  the  time  to  go  to  tell  him  how  swearing  John  Bun- 
yan,  through  the  gi'ace  of  God,  afterward  came  to  the  ce- 
lestial city.  Now  is  the  time  to  go  to  that  man  and  tell 
him  how  profligate  Newton  came,  through  conversion,  to 
be  a  world-renowned  preacher  of  righteousness.  Now  is 
the  time  to  tell  that  man  that  multitudes  who  have  been 
pounded  with  all  the  flails  of  sin,  and  dragged  through  all 
the  sewers  of  pollution,  at  last  have  risen  to  positive  do- 


STBIPPINQ   THE  SLAIN.  93 

minion  of  moral  power.  You  do  not  tell  him  that,  do  you? 
No.  You  say  to  him,  "  Loan  you  money  1  No.  You  are 
down.  You  will  have  to  go  to  the  dogs.  Lend  you  a 
shilHng !  I  would  not  lend  you  two  cents  to  keep  you 
from  the  gallows.  You  are  debauched.  Get  out  of  my 
sight  now !  Down  ;  you  will  have  to  stay  down."  And 
thus  these  bruised  and  battered  men  are  sometimes  accosted 
by  those  who  ought  to  lift  them  up.  Thus  the  last  vestige 
of  hope  is  taken  from  them.  Thus  those  who  ought  to  go 
and  lift  and  save  them  are  guilty  of  stripping  the  slain. 

The  point  I  want  to  make  is  this:  sin  is  hard,  crud,  and 
merciless.  Instead  of  helping  a  man  up,  it  helps  him  down  ; 
and  when,  like  Saul  and  his  comrades,  you  lie  on  the  field, 
it  will  come  and  steal  your  sword  and  helmet  and  shield, 
leaving  you  to  the  jackal  and  the  crow. 

But  the  world  and  Satan  do  not  do  all  their  work  with 
the  outcast  and  abandoned.  A  respectable,  impenitent  man 
comes  to  die.  He  is  flat  on  his  back.  lie  could  not  get 
up  if  the  house  were  on  fire.  Adroitest  medical  skill  and 
gentlest  nursing  have  been  a  failure.  He  has  come  to  his 
last  hour.  What  does  Satan  do  for  such  a  man  ?  Why, 
he  fetches  up  all  the  inapt,  disagreeable,  and  harrowing 
things  in  his  life.  lie  says,  "  Do  you  remember  those 
chances  you  had  for  heaven,  and  missed  them?  Do  you 
remember  all  those  lapses  in  conduct?  Do  you  remem- 
ber all  those  opprobrious  words  and  thoughts  and  ac- 
tions? Don't  remember  them,  eh?  I'll  make  you  remem- 
ber them."  And  then  he  takes  all  the  past  and  empties  it 
on  that  death-bed,  as  the  mail-bags  are  emptied  on  the  post- 
office  floor.  The  man  is  sick.  He  can  not  get  away  from 
them.  Then  the  man  says  to  Satan,  "  You  have  deceived 
me.     You  told  me  that  all  would  be  well.     You  said  there 


fc) 


94  STRIPPING   THE  SLAIN. 

would  be  no  trouble  at  the  last.  You  told  me  if  I  did  so 
and  so,  you  would  do  so  and  so.  Now  you  corner  me,  and 
hedge  me  up,  and  submerge  me  in  every  thing  evil."  "  Ha! 
ha!"  says  Satan,  "I  was  only  fooling  you.  It  is  mirth  for 
me  to  see  you  suffer.  I  have  been  for  thirty  years  plotting 
to  get  you  just  where  you  are.  It  is  hard  for  you  now — 
it  will  be  worse  for  you  after  a  while.  It  pleases  me.  Lie 
still,  sir.  Don't  flinch  or  shudder.  Come,  now,  I  will  tear 
off  from  you  the  last  rag  of  expectation.  I  will  rend  away 
from  your  soul  the  last  hope.  I  will  leave  you  bare  for 
the  beating  of  the  storm.  It  is  my  business  to  strip  the 
slain." 

While  men  are  in  robust  health,  and  their  digestion  is 
good,  and  their  nerves  are  strong,  they  think  their  physical 
strength  will  get  them  safely  through  the  last  exigency. 
They  say  it  is  only  cowardly  women  who  are  afraid  at  the 
last,  and  cry  out  for  God.  "  Wait  till  I  come  to  die.  I 
will  show  you.  You  won't  hear  me  pray,  nor  call  for  a 
minister,  nor  want  a  chapter  read  me  from  the  Bible." 
But  after  the  man  has  been  three  weeks  in  a  sick-room  his 
nerves  are  not  so  steady,  and  his  worldly  companions  are 
not  anj'where  near  to  cheer  him  up,  and  he  is  persuaded 
that  he  must  quit  life.  His  phj'sical  courage  is  all  gone. 
Ilejumps  at  the  fall  of  a  tea-spoon  in  a  saucer.  He  shivers 
at  the  idea  of  going  away.  He  says,  "Wife,  I  don't  think 
my  infidelity  is  going  to  take  me  through.  For  God's  sake, 
don't  bring  up  the  children  to  do  as  I  have  done!  If  you 
feel  like  it,  I  wish  you  would  read  a  verse  or  two  out  of 
Fanny's  Sabbath- school  hymn-book  or  New  Testament." 
But  Satan  breaks  in,  and  says,  "You  have  always  thought 
religion  trash  and  a  lie;  don't  give  up  at  the  last.  Be- 
sides that,  3'OU  can  not,  in  the  hour  you  have  to  live,  get 


STRIPHNO   THE  ULAIX.  95 

off  on  that  irack.  Die  as  you  lived.  With  my  great  black 
wings  I  shut  out  that  light.  Die  in  darkness.  I  rend  away 
from  you  that  last  vestige  of  hope.  It  is  my  business  to 
strip  the  slain." 

A  man  who  bad  rejected  Christianit}^,  and  thought  it  all 
trash,  came  to  die.  He  was  in  the  sweat  of  a  great  agony, 
and  his  wife  said,  "  We  had  better  have  some  prayer." 
"  Mary,  not  a  breath  of  that !"  he  said.  "  The  lightest  word 
of  prayer  would  roll  back  on  me  like  rocks  on  a  drowning 
man.  I  have  come  to  the  hour  of  test.  I  had  a  chance, 
and  I  forfeited  it.  I  believed  in  a  liar,  and  he  has  left  me 
in  the  lurch.  Mary,  bring  me  Tom  Paine,  the  book  that  I 
swore  by  and  lived  by,  and  pitch  it  into  the  fire,  and  let  it 
burn  and  burn  as  I  myself  shall  soon  burn."  And  then, 
with  the  foam  on  his  lip,  and  his  hands  tossing  wildly  in 
the  air,  he  cried  out,  "Blackness  of  darkness!  Oh,  my 
God,  too  late!"  And  the  spirits  of  darkness  whistled  up 
from  the  depth,  and  wheeled  around  and  around  him,  strip- 
ping the  slain. 

Sin  is  a  luxury  now;  it  is  exhilaration  now;  it  is  vic- 
tory now.  But  after  a  while  it  is  collision ;  it  is  defeat ; 
it  is  extermination ;  it  is  jackalism  ;  it  is  robbing  the  dead ; 
it  is  stripping  the  slain. 

Give  it  up  to-night;  give  it  up!  Oh,  how  you  have 
been  cheated  on,  my  brother,  from  one  thing  to  another! 
All  these  years  you  have  been  under  an  evil  mastery  that 
you  understood  not.  What  have  your  companions  done 
for  you  ?  What  have  they  done  for  your  health  ?  Nearl}'- 
ruined  it  by  carousal.  What  have  they  done  for  your 
fortune?  Almost  scattered  it  by  spendthrift  behavior. 
What  have  they  done  for  your  reputation?  Almost 
ruined  it  \\\i\\  good  men.     AVhat  have  they  done  for  your 


96  STRIPPING  THE  SLAIN. 

immortal  soul?  Almost  insured  its  overthrow.  You  are 
hastening  on  toward  the  consummation  of  all  that  is  sad. 
To-night  you  stop  and  think,  but  it  is  only  for  a  moment, 
and  then  you  will  tramp  on,  and  at  the  close  of  this  service 
you  will  go  out,  and  the  question  will  be,  "How  did  you 
like  the  sermon  ?"  and  one  man  will  say,  "  I  liked  it  very 
■well ;"  and  another  man  will  say,  "I  didn't  like  it  at  all;" 
but  neither  of  the  answers  will  touch  the  tremendous  fact 
that,  if  impenitent,  you  are  going  at  eighteen  knots  an 
hour  toward  shipwreck !  Yea,  you  are  in  a  battle  where 
you  will  fall ;  and  while  your  surviving  relatives  will  take 
3'our  remaining  estate,  and  Greenwood  will  take  your 
body,  the  messengers  of  darkness  will  take  your  soul,  and 
come  and  go  about  you  for  the  next  ten  million  years, 
stripping  the  slain. 

Many  are  crying  out,  "I  admit  I  am  slain,  I  admit  it." 
On  what  battle-field,  my  brothers?  By  what  weapon? 
"Polluted  imagination,"  says  one  man.  "Intoxicating 
liquor,"  says  another  man.  "My  own  hard  heart,"  says 
another  man.  Do  you  realize  this?  Then  I  come  to  tell 
you  that  the  omnipotent  Christ  is  ready  to  walk  across 
this  battle-field,  and  revive  and  resuscitate  and  resurrect 
your  dead  soul.  Let  him  take  your  hand,  and  rub  away 
the  numbness;  your  head,  and  bathe  off  the  aching;  your 
heart,  and  stop  its  wild  throb.  He  brought  Lazarus  to 
life;  he  brought  Jairus's  daughter  to  life;  he  brought  the 
young  man  of  Nain  to  life,  and  these  are  three  proofs  any- 
how that  he  can  bring  you  to  life. 

When  the  Philistines  came  down  on  the  field,  they  step- 
ped between  the  corpses,  and  they  rolled  over  the  dead, 
and  they  took  away  every  thing  that  was  valuable;  and 
so  it  was  with  the  people  that  followed  after  our  army  at 


STBIPPINQ   THE  tiLAIX.  97 

Chancellorsville,  and  at  Pittsburg  Landing,  and  at  Stone 
Eiver,  and  at  Atlanta,  stripping  the  slain ;  but  the  North- 
ern and  Southern  women — God  bless  them — came  on  the 
field  with  basins,  and  pads,  and  towels,  and  lint,  and  cor- 
dials, and  Christian  encouragement,  and  the  poor  fellows 
that  lay  there  lifted  up  their  arms  and  said,  "Oh,  how 
good  that  does  feel  since  you  dressed  it!"  and  others 
looi^:ed  up,  and  said,  "Oh,  how  you  make  me  think  of  my 
mother!"  and  others  said,  "Tell  the  folks  at  home  I  died 
thinking  about  them ;"  and  another  looked  up  and  said, 
"  Miss,  won't  you  sing  me  a  verse  of  '  Home,  Sweet 
Home'  before  I  die?"  And  then  the  tattoo  was  sounded, 
and  the  hats  were  off,  and  the  service  was  read,  "I  am 
the  resurrection  and  the  life;"  and  in  honor  of  the  departed 
the  muskets  were  loaded  and  the  command  given,  "  Take 
aim — fire!"     And  there  was  a  shingle  set  up  at  the  head 

of  the  grave,  with  the  epitaph  of  "Lieutenant ,  in  the 

Fourteenth  Massachusetts  Volunteers,"  or  "Captain , 

in  the  Fifteenth  Eegiment  of  South  Carolina  Volunteers." 
And  so  to-night,  across  this  great  field  of  moral  and  spirit- 
ual battle,  the  ano;els  of  God  come  walking;  amonp;  the 
slain,  and  there  are  voices  of  comfort,  and  voices  of  hope, 
and  voices  of  resurrection,  and  voices  of  heaven. 

Oh,  the  slain  !  the  slain!  Christ  is  ready  to  give  life  to 
the  dead.  lie  will  make  the  deaf  ear  to  hear,  the  blind 
eye  to  see,  the  pulseless  heart  to  beat,  and  the  damp  walls 
of  your  spiritual  charnel-house  will  crash  into  ruin  at  his 
cry,  "  Come  forth  !"  I  verily  believe  there  are  souls  in  this 
house  who  are  now  dead  in  sin,  who  in  half  an  hour  will 
be  alive  forever.  There  was  a  thrilling  dream,  a  glorious 
dream — you  may  have  heard  of  it.  Ezekiel  closed  his 
eyes,  and  he  saw  two  mountains,  and  a  valley  between  the 

5 


98  STRirHNG  THE  SLAIN. 

mountains.  That  valley  looked  as  though  there  had  been 
a  great  battle  there,  and  a  whole  army  had  been  slain,  and 
they  bad  been  unburied ;  and  the  beat  of  the  land,  and  the 
vultures  coming  there,  soon  the  bones  were  exposed  to  the 
sun,  and  they  looked  like  thousands  of  snow-drifts  all 
through  the  valley.  Frightful  spectacle!  The  bleaching 
skeletons  of  a  host!  But  Ezekiel  still  kept  his  eyes  shut; 
and,  lo!  there  were  four  currents  of  wind  that  struck  that 
battle-field,  and  where  those  four  currents  of  wind  met,  the 
bones  began  to  rattle;  and  the  foot  came  to  the  ankle,  and 
the  hand  came  to  the  wrist,  and  the  jaws  clashed  together, 
and  the  spinal  column  gathered  up  the  ganglions  and  the 
nervous  fibre,  and  all  the  valley  wriggled,  and  writhed, 
and  throbbed,  and  rocked,  and  rose  up.  There,  a  man 
coming  to  life.  There,  a  hundred  men.  There,  a  thou- 
sand; and  all  falling  into  line,  waiting  for  the  shout  of 
their  commander.  Ten  thousand  bleached  skeletons  spring- 
ing up  into  ten  thousand  warriors,  panting  for  the  ^vixy.  I 
hope  that  instead  of  being  a  dream  it  may  be  a  prophecy 
of  what  we  shall  see  here  to-night.  Let  this  north  wall  be 
one  of  tlie  mountains,  and  the  south  wall  be  taken  for  an- 
other of  the  mountains,  and  let  all  the  aisles  and  the  pews 
be  the  valley  between,  for  there  are  thousands  here  to- 
night without  one  pulsation  of  spiritual  life.  I  look  off  in 
one  direction,  and  they  are  dead.  I  look  off  in  another 
direction,  and  they  are  dead.  Who  will  bring  them  to 
life?  Who  shall  rouse  them  up?  If  I  should  halloo  at 
the  top  of  my  voice,  I  could  not  wake  them. 

Wait  a  moment!  Listen!  Tliere  is  a  rustling.  There 
is  a  gale  from  heaven.  It  comes  from  the  north,  and  from 
the  south,  and  from  the  east,  and  from  the  west.  It  shuts 
us  in.     It  blows  upon  the  slain.     There,  a  soul  begins  to 


STltirPlNG    THE  SLAIN.  99 

move  in  spiritual  life;  there,  ten  souls;  there,  a  score  of 
souls;  there,  a  hundred  souls.  The  nostril  throbbing  in 
divine  respiration,  the  hands  lifted  as  though  to  take  hold 
of  heaven,  the  tongue  moving  as  in  prayer  and  adoration. 
Life!  immortal  life  coming  into  the  slain.  Ten  men  for 
God  —  fifty — a  hundred  —  a  regiment  —  an  army  for  God. 
Oh  that  we  might  have  such  a  scene  here  to-night!  In 
Ezekiel's  words,  and  in  almost  a  frenzy  of  prayer,  I  cry, 
"Come  from  the  four  winds,  0  breath,  and  breathe  upon 
the  slain." 

You  will  have  to  surrender  your  heart  to-night  to  God. 
You  can  not  take  the  responsibility  of  fighting  against  the 
Spirit  in  this  crisis,  which  will  decide  whether  you  are  to 
go  to  heaven  or  to  hell — to  join  the  hallelujahs  of  the  saved, 
or  the  bowlings  of  the  damned.  You  must  pray.  Yon 
must  repent.  You  must  this  night  fling  your  sinful  soul 
on  the  pardoning  mercy  of  God.  You  must!  I  see  your 
resolution  against  God  giving  way.  Your  determination 
•wavering.  I  break  through  the  breach  in  the  wall,  and 
follow  np  the  advantage  gained,  hoping  to  rout  your  last 
opposition  to  Christ,  and  make  you  "  ground  arms"  at  the 
feet  of  the  Divine  Conqueror.  Oh,  you  must  I  You  must ! 
The  moon  does  not  ask  the  tides  of  the  Atlantic  Ocean  to 
rise.  It  only  stoops  down  with  two  great  hands  of  light, 
the  one  at  the  European  beach  and  the  other  at  the  Amer- 
ican beach,  and  then  lifts  the  great  laver  of  molten  silver. 
And  God,  it  seems  to  me,  is  now  going  to  lift  this  audience 
to  newness  of  life.  Do  you  not  feel  the  swellings  of  the 
great  oceanic  tides  of  Divine  mercy?  My  heart  is  in  an- 
guish to  have  you  saved.  For  this  I  pray  and  preach  and 
long,  glad  to  be  called  a  fool  for  Christ's  sake  and  your 
salvation.     Some  one  replies,  "  Dear  me,  I  do  wish  I  could 


100  STRIPPING   THE  SLAIX. 

have  these  matters  arranged  with  my  God.  I  want  to  be 
saved.  God  knows  I  want  to  be  saved;  but  you  stand 
there  talking  about  this  matter,  and  you  don't  show  me 
how."  My  dear  brother,  the  work  has  all  been  done. 
Christ  did  it  with  his  own  torn  hand  and  lacerated  foot  and 
bleeding  side.  He  took  your  place  and  died  your  death, 
if  you  would  only  believe  it,  only  accept  him  as  your  sub- 
stitute. "  But,"  you  say,  "  how  am  I  to  get  up  to  that  feel- 
ing?" I  reply,  the  Holy  Spirit  is  ready  to  help  you  up  to 
that  feeling,  if  you  will  only  ask  him  here  and  now. 

What  an  amazing  pity  that  any  man  should  go  from  this 
house  unblessed,  when  such  a  large  blessing  is  offered  him 
at  less  cost  than  you  would  pay  for  a  pin — "without  mon- 
ey and  without  price!"  I  have  driven  down  to-night  with 
the  Lord's  ambulance  to  the  battle-field  where  your  soul 
lies  exposed  to  the  darkness  and  the  storm,  and  I  want  to 
lift  you  in  and  drive  off  with  you  toward  heaven.  Oh, 
Christians!  by  your  prayers  help  lift  these  wounded  souls 
into  the  ambulance.  God  forbid  that  any  should  be  left 
on  the  field,  and  that  at  last  eternal  sorrow  and  remorse 
and  despair  should  come  up  around  their  souls  like  the 
bandit  Philistines  to  the  field  of  Gilboa,  stripping  the  slain. 


A   SL'Jf  IN  GOSPEL  APdTHMETIC.  101 


A  SUM  IN  GOSPEL  ARITHMETIC. 

"What  shall  it  profit  a  man,  if  he  shall  gain  the  whole  world,  and  lose  his 
own  soul?" — Mark  viii.,  3(5. 

I  AM  accustomed,  Sabbath  by  Sabbatli,  to  stand  before 
an  audience  of  bargain-makers.  There  may  be  men  in 
all  occupations  sitting  before  me,  yet  the  vast  majority  of 
them,  I  am  very  well  aware,  are  engaged  from  Monday  morn- 
ing to  Saturday  night  in  the  store.  In  many  of  the  fami- 
lies of  my  congregation,  across  the  breakfast-table  and  the 
tea-table  are  discussed  questions  of  loss  and  gain.  You  are 
every  day  asking  yourself,  "What  is  the  value  of  this? 
What  is  the  value  of  that?"  You  would  not  think  of  giv- 
ing something  of  greater  value  for  that  which  is  of  lesser 
value.  You  would  not  think  of  selling  that  which  cost 
you  ten  dollars  for  five  doHars.  If  you  had  a  property 
that  was  worth  fifteen  thousand  dollars,  you  would  not  sell 
it  for  four  thousand  dollars.  You  are  intelligent  in  all 
matters  of  bargain-making.  Are  you  as  wise  in  the  things 
that  pertain  to  the  matters  of  the  soul?  Christ  adapted 
his  instructions  to  the  circumstances  of  those  to  whom  he 
spoke.  W^hen  he  talked  to  fishermen,  he  spoke  of  the 
Gospel  net.  When  he  talked  to  the  farmers,  he  said,  "A 
sower  went  forth  to  sow."  When  he  talked  to  the  shep- 
herds, he  told  the  parable  of  the  lost  sheep.  And  am  I 
not  right  when  speaking  this  morning  to  an  audience 
made  up  of  bargain -m;ilcers,  that  I  address  them   in  the* 


102  ^  SUM  IN  GOSPEL  ARITHMETIC. 

words  of  my  text,  asking,  "  What  sliall  it  profit  a  man, 
if  he  shall  gain  the  whole  world,  and  lose  his  own 
soul?" 

I  propose,  as  far  as  possible,  to  estimate  and  compare  the 
value  of  two  properties. 

First,  I  have  to  say  that  the  world  is  a  very  grand  ijroji- 
eriy.  Its  flowers  are  God's  thouglits  in  bloom.  Its  rocks 
are  God's  thoughts  in  stone.  Its  dew-drops  are  God's 
thoughts  in  pearl.  This  world  is  God's  child — a  wayward 
child  indeed :  it  has  wandered  off  through  the  heavens. 
But  about  eighteen  hundred  and  seventy-four  or  eighteen 
hundred  and  seventy-five  yeai's  ago,  one  Christmas  night, 
God  sent  out  a  sister  world  to  call  that  wanderer  back, 
and  it  hung  over  Bethlehem  only  long  enough  to  get  the 
promise  of  the  wanderer's  return,  and  now  that  lost  world, 
with  soft  feet  of  light,  comes  treading  back  through  the 
heavens.  The  hills,  how  beautiful  they  billow  up,  the 
edge  of  the  wave  white  with  the  foam  of  crocuses!  How 
beautiful  the  rainbow,  the  arched  bridge  on  which  heaven 
and  earth  come  and  talk  to  each  other  in  tears,  after  the 
storm  is  over!  How  nimble  the  feet  of  the  lamp-lighters 
that  in  a  few  minutes  set  all  the  dome  of  the  night  ablaze 
with  brackets  of  fire !  How  bright  the  oar  of  the  saffron 
cloud  that  rows  across  the  deep  sea  of  heaven  !  How  beau- 
tiful the  Spring,  with  bridal  blossoms  in  her  hair!  I  won- 
der who  it  is  that  beats  time  on  a  June  morning  for  the 
bird  orchestra.  How  gently  the  harebell  tolls  its  fragrance 
on  the  air !  There  may  be  grander  worlds,  swarthier 
worlds,  larger  worlds  than  this;  but  I  think  that  this  is  a 
most  exquisite  world — a  mignonnette  on  the  bosom  of  im- 
mensity !  "Oh,"  you  say,  "take  my  soul!  give  me  that 
•world!     I  am  willing  to  take  it  in  exchange.     I  am  ready 


A   SUM  jy  GOSPEL  AlilTHMF/nC.  103 

HOW  for  the  bargain.  It  is  so  beautiful  a  world,  so  sweet  a 
world,  so  grand  a  world !" 

But  let  us  look  more  minutely  into  the  value  of  tliis 
world.  You  will  not  buy  property  unless  you  can  get  a 
good  title  to  it.  After  you  have  looked  at  the  property 
and  found  out  that  it  suits  you,  you  send  an  attorney  to 
the  public  office,  and  he  examines  the  book  of  deeds,  and 
the  book  of  mortgages,  and  the  book  of  judgments,  and 
the  book  of  liens,  and  he  decides  whether  the  title  is  good 
before  you  will  have  any  thing  to  do  with  it.  There 
might  be  a  splendid  property,  and  in  every  way  exactly 
suited  to  your  want;  but  if  you  can  not  get  a  good  title, 
you  will  not  take  it.  Now,  I  am  here  this  morning  to  say 
that  it  is  impossible  to  get  a  good  title  to  this  world.  If 
I  settle  down  upon  it,  in  the  very  year  I  so  settle  down 
upon  it  as  a  permanent  possession,  I  may  be  driven  away 
from  it.  Ay,  in  five  minutes  after  I  give  up  my  soul  for 
the  world  I  may  have  to  part  with  the  world;  and  what 
kind  of  a  title  do  you  call  that?  There  is  only  one  way 
in  which  I  can  hold  an  earthly  possession,  and  that  is 
through  the  senses.  All  beautiful  sights  through  the  eye, 
but  the  eye  may  be  blotted  out;  all  captivating  sounds 
through  the  ear,  but  my  ear  may  be  deafened;  all  luscious- 
ness  of  fruits  and  viands  through  my  taste,  but  my  taste 
may  be  destroyed ;  all  appreciation  of  culture  and  of  art 
through  my  mind,  but  I  may  lose  my  mind.  What  a  frail 
bold,  then,  I  have  upon  any  earthly  possession! 

In  courts  of  law,  if  you  want  to  get  a  man  off"  a  property, 
you  must  serve  upon  him  a  writ  of  ejectment,  giving  him  a 
certain  time  to  vacate  the  premises;  but  when  Death  comes 
to  us  and  serves  a  writ  of  ejectment,  he  does  not  give  us 
one  second  of  forewarning.     He  says,  "Off  of  this  place! 


104  ^  SUM  IN  GOSPEL  ATilTHMETIC. 

You  have  no  right  any  longer  to  the  possession."  We 
might  cry  out,  "I  gave  you  a  hundred  thousand  dollars 
for  that  property ;"  the  plea  would  be  of  no  avail.  "We 
might  say,  "  We  have  a  warrantee  deed  for  that  property;" 
the  plea  would  be  of  no  avail.  We  might  say,  "  We  have 
a  lien  on  that  store-house;"  that  would  do  us  no  good. 
Death  is  blind,  and  he  can  not  see  a  seal,  and  can  not  read 
an  indenture.  So  that,  first  and  last,  I  want  to  tell  you 
that  when  you  propose  that  I  give  up  my  soul  for  the 
world,  you  can  not  give  me  the  first  item  of  title. 

Having  examined  the  title  of  a  propertj^,  your  next  ques- 
tion is  about  insurance.  You  would  not  be  silly  enough 
to  buy  a  large  warehouse  that  could  not  possibly  be  in- 
sured. You  would  not  have  any  thing  to  do  with  such  a 
property.  Now,  I  ask  you  what  assurance  can  you  give 
me  that  this  world  is  not  going  to  be  burned  up  ?  Abso- 
lutely none.  Geologists  tell  us  that  it  is  already  on  fire ; 
that  the  heart  of  the  world  is  one  great  living  coal ;  that 
it  is  just  like  a  ship  on  fire  at  sea,  the  flames  not  bursting 
out  because  the  hatches  are  kept  down.  And  yet  you  pro- 
pose to  palm  off  on  me,  in  return  for  my  soul,  a  world  for 
which,  in  the  first  place,  you  give  no  title,  and  in  the  sec- 
ond place,  for  which  you  can  give  no  insurance.  "  Oh," 
you  say,  "  the  water  of  the  oceans  will  wash  over  all  the 
land  and  put  out  the  fire."  Oh  no.  There  are  inflamma- 
ble elements  in  the  water,  hydrogen  and  oxygen.  Call  off 
the  hydrogen,  and  then  the  Atlantic  and  the  Pacific  oceans 
would  blaze  like  heaps  of  shavings.  You  want  me  to  take 
this  world,  for  which  you  can  give  no  possible  insurance. 

Astronomers  have  swept  their  telescopes  through  the 
sky,  and  have  found  out  that  there  have  been  thirteen 
worlds,  in  the  last  two  centuries,  that  have  disappeared. 


A   SUM  IX  GOSPEL  ARITHMETIC.  105 

At  first,  they  looked  just  like  other  worlds.  Then  they 
got  deeply  red — they  were  on  fire.  Then  they  got  ashen, 
showing  they  were  burned  down.  Then  they  disappeared, 
showino-  that  even  the  ashes  were  scattered.     And  if  the 

O 

geologist  be  right  in  his  prophecy,  then  our  world  is  to  go 
in  the  same  way.  And  yet  you  want  me  to  exchange  my 
soul  for  it.  Ah  no;  it  is  a  world  that  is  burning  now. 
Suppose  you  brought  an  insurance  agent  to  look  at  your 
property  for  the  purpose  of  giving  you  a  policy  upon  it, 
and  while  he  stood  in  front  of  the  house,  he  should  say, 
"That  house  is  on  fire  now  in  the  basement,"  you  could 
not  get  any  insurance  upon  it.  Yet  you  talk  about  this 
world  as  though  it  were  a  safe  investment,  as  though  you 
could  get  some  insurance  upon  it,  when  down  in  the  base- 
ment it  is  on  fire. 

I  remark,  also,  that  this  world  is  a  property,  with  which 
every  body  who  has  taken  it  as  a  possession  has  had  trou- 
ble. Now,  between  my  house  and  this  church  there  is  a 
reach  of  land  which  is  not  built  on,  I  ask  what  is  the 
matter,  and  they  reply  that  every  body  who  has  had  any 
thing  to  do  with  that  property  got  into  trouble  about  it. 
It  is  just  so  with  this  world  :  every  body  that  has  had  any 
thing  to  do  with  it,  as  a  possession,  has  been  in  perplexity. 
How  was  it  with  Lord  Byron  ?  Did  he  not  sell  his  im- 
mortal soul  for  the  purpose  of  getting  the  world  ?  Was 
he  satisfied  with  the  possession  ?  Alas !  alas !  the  poem 
graphically  describes  his  case  when  it  says : 

"Drank  every  cup  of  joy, 
Heavd  every  trump  of  fame  ; 
Drank  early,  deeply  drank, 

Drank  draughts  which  common  millions  might  have  quenched- 
Then  died  of  thirst,  because  there  was  no  more  to  drink." 

6* 


106  A  SLLV  Z.V  GOSPEL  ARITHMETIC. 

Oh  yes,  he  had  trouble  with  it ;  and  so  did  Napoleon. 
After  conquering  nations  by  the  force  of  the  sword,  be  lies 
down  to  die,  his  entire  possession  the  military  boots  that 
he  insisted  on  having  upon  his  feet  while  he  was  dying. 
So  it  has  been  with  men  who  had  better  ambition.  Thack- 
eray, one  of  the  most  genial  and  lovable  souls,  after  he  had 
won  the  applause  of  all  intelligent  lands  through  his  won- 
derful genius,  sits  down  in  a  restaurant  in  Paris,  looks  to 
the  other  end  of  the  room,  and  wonders  whose  that  forlorn 
and  wretched  face  is  ;  rising  up  after  a  while,  he  finds  that 
it  is  Thackeray  in  the  mirror.  Oh  yes,  this  world  is  a 
cheat.  Talk  about  a  man  gaining  the  world  !  Who  ever 
gained  half  of  the  world  ?  Who  ever  owned  a  hemisphere? 
Who  ever  gained  a  continent?  Who  ever  owned  Asia? 
Who  ever  gained  a  city?  Who  ever  owned  Brooklyn? 
Talk  about  gaining  the  world !  No  man  ever  gained  it,  or 
the  hundred-thousandth  part  of  it.  You  are  demanding 
that  I  sell  my  soul,  not  for  the  world,  but  for  a  fragment 
of  it.  Here  is  a  man  who  has  had  a  large  estate  for  forty 
or  fifty  years.  He  lies  down  to  die.  You  say,  "That  man 
is  worth  millions  and  millions  of  dollars."  Is  he?  You 
call  up  a  surveyor,  with  his  compass  and  chains,  and  you 
say,  "There  is  a  property  extending  three  miles  in  one  di- 
rection, and  three  miles  in  another  direction."  Ts  that  the 
way  to  measure  that  man's  property  ?  No !  You  do  not 
want  any  surveyor,  with  his  compass  and  chains.  That  is 
not  the  way  you  want  to  measure  that  man's  property  now. 
It  is  an  undertaker  that  you  need,  who  will  come  and  put 
his  finger  in  his  vest-pocket,  and  take  out  a  tape-line,  and 
he  will  measure  five  feet  nine  inches  one  way,  and  two  feet 
and  a  half  the  other  way.  That  is  the  man's  property. 
Oh  no,  I  forgot;  not  so  much  as  that,  for  he  does  not  own 


A   SUM  IN  GOSPEL  ARITHMETIC.  107 

even  the  place  in  wbich  be  lies  in  the  cemetery.  The 
deed  to  that  belongs  to  the  executors  and  the  heirs.  Oh, 
what  a  property  you  propose  to  give  me  for  my  soul !  If 
you  sell  a  bill  of  goods,  3-ou  go  into  the  counting-room,  and 
say  to  your  partner,  "Do  you  think  that  man  is  good  for 
this  bill?  Can  he  give  proper  security?  Will  he  meet 
this  payment?"  Now,  when  you  are  offered  this  world  as 
a  possession,!  want  you  to  test  the  matter.  I  do  not  want 
you  to  go  into  this  bargain  blindly.  I  want  you  to  ask 
about  the  title,  about  the  insurance,  about  whether  men 
have  ever  had  any  trouble  with  it,  about  whether  you  can 
keep  it,  about  whether  you  can  get  all,  or  the  ten- thou- 
sandth, or  one-hundrcd-thousandth  part  of  it. 

There  is  the  world  now.  I  shall  say  no  more  about  it. 
Make  up  your  mind  for  yourself,  as  I  shall,  before  God, 
have  to  make  up  my  mind  for  mj-self,  about  the  value  of 
this  world.  I  can  not  afford  to  make  a  mistake  for  my 
soul,  and  you  can  not  afford  to  make  a  mistake  for  your 
soul. 

Now,  let  us  look  at  the  other  property — the  soul.  "We 
can  not  make  a  bargain  without  seeing  the  comparative 
value.  The  soul!  How  shall  I  estimate  the  value  of  it? 
Well,  by  its  exquisite  organization.  It  is  the  most  won- 
derful piece  of  mechanism  ever  put  together.  Machinery 
is  of  value  in  proportion  as  it  is  mighty  and  silent  at  the 
same  time.  You  look  at  the  engine  and  the  machinery  in 
the  Philadelphia  Mint,  and,  as  you  see  it  performing  its 
wonderful  work,  you  will  be  surprised  to  find  how  silently 
it  goes.  Machinery  that  roars  and  tears  soon  destroys 
itself;  but  silent  machinery  is  often  most  effective.  Now, 
so  it  is  with  the  soul  of  man,  with  all  its  tremendous  fac- 
ulties— it  moves  in  silence.     Judgment,  without  any  rack- 


108  A  SUM  LV  GOSPEL  ARITHMETIC. 

et,  lifting  its  scales;  memory,  without  any  noise,  bringing 
down  all  its  treasures;  conscience  taking  its  judgment-seat 
without  any  excitement;  the  understanding  and  the  will 
all  doing  their  work.  Velocity,  majesty,  might;  but  si- 
lence— silence.  You  listen  at  the  door  of  your  heart.  You 
can  hear  no  sound.  The  soul  is  all  quiet.  It  is  so  delicate 
an  instrument  that  no  human  hand  can  touch  it.  You 
break  a  bone,  and  with  splinters  and  bandages  the  surgeon 
sets  it;  the  eye  becomes  inflamed,  the  apothecary's  wash 
cools  it;  but  a  soul  off  the  track,  unbalanced,  no  human 
power  can  re-adjust  it.  With  one  sweep  of  its  wing  it  cir- 
cles the  universe,  and  overvaults  the  throne  of  God.  Why, 
in  the  hour  of  death  the  soul  is  so  mighty,  it  throws  aside 
the  body  as  though  it  were  a  toy.  It  drives  back  medical 
skill  as  impotent.  It  breaks  through  the  circle  of  loved 
ones  who  stand  around  the  dying  couch.  With  one  leap, 
it  springs  beyond  star,  and  moon,  and  sun,  and  chasms  of 
immensity.  Oh,  it  is  a  soul  superior  to  all  material  things! 
No  fire  can  consume  it;  no  floods  can  drown  it;  no  rocks 
can  crush  it ;  no  walls  can  impede  it ;  no  time  can  exhaust 
it.  It  wants  no  bridge  on  which  to  cross  a  chasm.  It 
wants  no  plummet  with  which  to  sound  a  depth.  A  soul 
so  migiity,  so  swift,  so  silent,  must  be  a  priceless  soul. 

I  calculate  the  value  of  the  soul,  also,  by  its  capacity  for 
happiness.  How  much  joy  it  can  get  in  this  world,  out  of 
friendships,  out  of  books,  out  of  clouds,  out  of  the  sea,  out 
of  flowers,  out  of  ten  thousand  things  ;  and  yet  all  the  joy 
it  has  here  does  not  test  its  capacity.  You  are  in  a  con- 
cert before  the  curtain  hoists,  and  you  hear  the  instruments 
preparing — the  sharp  snap  of  the  broken  string,  the  scrap- 
ing of  the  bow  across  the  viol.  "  There  is  no  music  in 
that,"  you  say.     It  is  only  getting  ready  for  the  music. 


A  SUM  ly  GOSrEL  ARITHMETIC.  109 

And  all  the  enjoyment  of  the  soul  in  this  world,  the  enjoy- 
ment we  think  is  real  enjoyment,  is  only  preparative ;  it  is 
only  anticipative;  it  is  only  the  first  stages  of  the  thing; 
it  is  only  the  entrance,  the  beginning  of  that  which  shall 
be  the  orchestral  harmonies  and  splendors  of  the  redeemed. 

You  can  not  test  the  full  power  of  the  soul  for  happi- 
ness in  this  world.  How  much  power  the  soul  has  here 
to  find  enjoyment  in  friendships!  but  oh,  the  grander 
friendships  for  the  soul  in  the  skies !  IIow  sweet  the  flow- 
ers here!  but  how  much  sweeter  they  will  be  there!  I  do 
not  think  that  when  flowers  die  on  earth,  they  die  forever. 
I  think  that  the  fragrance  of  the  flowers  is  the  spirit  being 
wafted  away  into  glory.  God  says  there  are  palm-trees  in 
heaven  and  fruits  in  heaven.  If  so,  why  not  the  spirits  of 
the  dead  flowers?  In  the  sunny  valleys  of  heaven,  shall 
not  the  marigold  creep?  On  the  hills  of  heaven,  will  not 
the  amaranth  bloom?  On  the  amethystine  walls  of  heaven, 
will  not  the  jasmine  climb?  "My  beloved  is  come  down 
into  his  garden  to  gather  lilies."  No  flowers  in  heaven? 
Where,  then,  do  they  get  their  garlands  for  the  brows  of 
the  righteous? 

Christ  is  glorious  to  our  souls  now,  but  how  much  grand- 
er our  appreciation  after  a  while!  A  conqueror  comes 
back  after  the  battle.     He  has  been  fio-htinsr  for  us.     He 

O  O 

comes  upon  the  platform.  He  has  one  arm  in  a  sling,  and 
the  other  arm  holds  a  crutch.  As  he  mounts  the  platform, 
oh,  the  enthusiasm  of  the  audience !  They  say,  "  That  man 
fought  for  us,  and  imperiled  his  life  for  us;"  and  how  wild 
the  huzza  that  follows  huzza!  AVhcn  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  shall  at  last  stand  out  before  the  multitudes  of  the 
redeemed  of  heaven,  and  we  meet  him  face  to  face,  and  feel 
that  he  was  wounded  in  the  bead,  and  wounded  in  the 


110  -A  SUM  IN  GOSPEL  ARITHMETIC. 

hands,  and  wounded  in  the  feet,  and  wounded  in  the  side 
for  us,  methinks  we  will  be  overwhelmed.  We  will  sit 
some  time  gazing  in  silence,  until  some  leader  amidst  the 
white-robed  choir  shall  lift  the  baton  of  light,  and  give  the 
signal  that  it  is  time  to  wake  the  song  of  jubilee;  and  all 
heaven  then  will  break  forth  into,  "Hosanna!  hosanna! 
hosanna!     Worthy  is  the  Lamb  that  was  slain," 

I  calculate  further  the  value  of  the  soul  by  the  price 
that  has  been  paid  for  it.  In  St.  Petersburg  there  is  a 
)i  diamond  that  the  Government  paid  two  hundred  thousand 
j  dollars  for.  "Well,"  you  say,  "it  must  have  been  very 
valuable,  or  the  Government  would  not  have  paid  two  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  for  it."  I  want  to  see  what  my  soul 
is  worth,  and  what  your  soul  is  worth,  by  seeing  what  has 
been  paid  for  it.  For  that  immortal  soul,  the  richest  blood 
that  was  ever  shed,  the  deepest  groan  that  was  ever  ut- 
tered, all  the  griefs  of  earth  compressed  into  one  tear,  all 
the  sufferings  of  earth  gathered  into  one  rapier  of  pain 
and  struck  through  his  holy  heart.  Does  it  not  imply 
tremendous  value? 

I  argue,  also,  the  value  of  the  soul  from  the  home  that 
has  been  fitted  up  for  it  in  the  future.  One  would  have 
thought  that  a  street  of  adamant  would  have  done.  No;  it 
is  a  street  of  gold.  One  would  have  thought  that  a  wall 
of  granite  would  have  done.  No ;  it  is  the  flame  of  sar- 
donyx mingling  with  the  green  of  emerald.  One  would 
have  thought  that  an  occasional  doxology  would  have 
done.  No;  it  is  a  perpetual  song.  If  the  ages  of  heaven 
marched  in  a  straight  line,  some  day  the  last  regiment,  per- 
haps, might  pass  out  of  sight;  but  no,  the  ages  of  heaven  do 
not  march  in  a  straight  line,  but  in  a  circle  around  about 
the  throne  of  God  ;  forever,  forever,  tramp,  tramp !    A  soul 


A  SUM  IN  GOSPEL  ARITHMETIC.  Ill 

SO  bought,  SO  equipped,  so  provided  for,  must  be  a  priceless 
soul,  a  mnjestic  soul,  a  tremendous  soul. 

Now,  you  have  seen  the  two  properties — the  world,  the 
soul.  One  perishable,  the  other  immortal.  One  unsatis- 
fying, the  other  capable  of  ever-increasing  felicitj^  Will 
you  trade?  Will  you  trade  even?  Remember,  it  is  the 
only  investment  you  can  make.  If  a  man  sell  a  bill  of 
goods  worth  five  thousand  dollars,  and  he  is  cheated  out 
of  it,  he  may  get  five  thousand  dollars  somewhere  else; 
but  a  man  who  invests  his  soul,  invests  all.  Losing  that, 
he  loses  all.  Saving  that,  he  saves  all.  In  the  light  of  my 
text,  it  seems  to  me  as  if  you  were  this  morning  offer- 
ing your  soul  to  the  highest  bidder;  and  I  hear  you  say, 
"What  is  bid.  for  it,  my  deathless  spirit?  What  is  bid 
for  it?"  Satan  says,  "I'll  bid  the  world."  You  say, 
"Begone!  that  is  no  equivalent.  Sell  my  soul  for  the 
world?  No!  Begone!"  But  there  is  some  one  else  in 
the  audience  not  so  wise  as  that.  He  says,  "  What  is  bid 
for  my  immortal  soul?"  Satan  says,  "I'll  bid  the  world." 
"  The  world  ?  Going  at  that,  going  at  that,  going !  Gone  I" 
Gone  forever ! 

"What  is  the  thing  of  greatest  price, 
Tlie  whole  creation  round  ? 
That  which  was  lost  in  paradise, 
That  which  in  Christ  is  found. 

"Then  let  us  gather  round  the  cross, 
Tliat  knowledge  to  obtain  ; 
Not  by  the  soul's  eternal  loss, 
But  everlasting  gain." 

Well,  there  are  a  great  many  people  in  the  house  who 
say,  "I  will  not  sell  my  soul  for  the  world.  I  find  the 
world  is  an  unsatisr3ang  portion."  What,  then,  will  you 
do  with  your  soul?      Some  one  whispers  here,  "I  will 


112  ^  iiUM  IX  GOSPEL  AlUTHMETIC. 

give  my  soul  to  Christ."  Will  you?  That  is  the  wisest 
resolution  you  ever  made.  Will  you  give  it  to  Christ? 
When?  To-morrow?  No;  now.  I  congratulate  you  if 
you  have  come  to  such  a  decision.  Oh,  if  this  morning 
the  eternal  Spirit  of  God  would  come  down  upon  this 
audience,  and  show  you  the  vanity  of  this  world,  and  the 
immense  importance  of  Christ's  religion,  and  the  infinite 
value  of  your  own  immortal  souls,  what  a  house  this 
would  be!  what  an  hour  this  would  be!  what  a  moment 
this  would  be !  Do  you  know  that  Christ  has  bought  your 
soul?  Do  you  know  that  he  has  paid  an  infinite  price  for 
it?  Do  you  know  that  he  is  worthy  of  it?  Will  you  give 
it  to  him  now? 

I  was  reading  this  morning  of  a  sailor  who  had  just  got 
ashore,  and  was  telling  about  his  last  experience  at  sea. 
He  said,  "The  last  time  I  crossed  the  ocean,  we  had  a  ter- 
rific time.  After  we  had  been  out  three  or  four  days,  the 
machinery  got  disarranged,  and  the  steam  began  to  escape, 
and  the  cnptain,  gathering  the  people  and  the  crew  on 
deck,  said,  "  Unless  some  one  shall  go  down  and  shut  off 
that  steam,  and  arrange  that  machinery  at  the  peril  of  his 
life,  we  must  all  be  destroyed."  He  was  not  willing  to  go 
down  himself.  No  one  seemed  willing  to  go.  The  pas- 
sengers gathered  at  one  end  of  the  steamer  waiting  for 
their  fate.  The  captain  said,  "  I  give  you  a  last  warning. 
If  there  is  no  one  here  willing  to  imperil  his  life  and  go 
down  and  fix  that  machinery,  we  must  all  be  lost."  A 
plain  sailor  said,  "I'll  go,  sir;"  and  he  wrapped  himself  in 
a  coarse  piece  of  canvas  and  went  down,  and  was  gone  but 
a  few  moments,  when  the  escaping  steam  stopped,  and  the 
machinery  was  corrected.  The  captain  cried  out  to  the 
passengers,  "All  saved !      Let  us  go  down  below  and  see 


A  SUM  IN  QOHPEL  AM  IT  EMETIC.  113 

what  has  become  of  the  poor  fellow."  They  went  down. 
There  he  lay  dead.  Vicarious  suffering!  Died  for  all! 
Oh!  do  you  suppose  that  those  people  on  the  ship  ever 
forgot,  ever  can  forget  that  poor  fellow?  "No!"  they 
say;  "it  was  through  his  sacrifice  that  I  got  ashore."  The 
lime  came  when  our  whole  race  must  die  unless  some  one 
should  endure  torture  and  sorrow  and  shame.  Who  shall 
come  to  the  rescue?  Shall  it  be  one  of  the  seraphim? 
Not  one.  Shall  it  be  one  of  the  cherubim  ?  Not  one. 
Shall  it  be  an  inhabitant  of  some  pure  and  unfallen  world? 
Not  one.  Then  Christ  said,  "  Lo !  I  come  to  do  thy  will, 
O  God ;"  and  he  went  down  through  the  dark  stairs  of 
our  sin,  and  wretchedness,  and  misery,  and  woe,  and  he 
stopped  the  peril,  and  he  died,  that  you  and  I  might  be 
free.  Oh,  the  love!  oh,  the  endurance!  oh,  the  horrors  of 
the  sacrifice!  Shall  not  our  souls  this  morning  go  out 
toward  him,  saying,  "Lord  Jesus  Christ,  take  my  soul. 
Thou  art  worthy  to  have  it.     Thou  hast  died  to  save  it." 

God  help  you  this  morning  rightly  to  cipher  out  this 
sum  in  Gospel  arithmetic:  "What  shall  it  profit  a  man,  if 
he  shall  gain  the  whole  world,  and  lose  his  own  soul  ?" 


114  SWIMMING  FOB  LIFE. 


SWIMMING  FOR  LIFE. 

"He  shall  spread  forth  his  hands  in  the  midst  of  them,  as  he  that  synm" 
meth  spreadeth  forth  his  hands  to  swim." — Isaiah  xxv.,  11. 

^^HE  fisherman  seeks  out  unfrequented  nooks.  Yea 
-■-  stand  all  day  on  the  bank  of  a  wide  river  in  the  broil- 
ino"  sun,  and  fling  out  your  line,  and  catch  nothing;  while 
the  expert  angler  breaks  through  the  jungle,  and  goes  by 
the  shadow  of  the  solitary  rock,  and,  in  a  place  where  no 
fisherman  has  been  for  ten  years,  throws  out  his  line,  and 
comes  home  at  night,  his  face  shining  and  his  basket  full. 
I  do  not  know  why  we  ministers  of  the  Gospel  need  al- 
ways be  fishing  in  the  same  stream,  and  preaching  from 
the  same  texts  that  other  people  preach  from.  I  can  not 
understand  the  policy  of  the  minister  who,  in  Blackfriars, 
London,  England,  every  week  for  thirty  years  preached 
from  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  It  is  an  exhilaration  to 
me  when  I  can  come  across  a  theme  which  I  feel  has  not 
yet  been  treated,  and  my  text  is  one  of  that  kind.  There 
are  paths  in  God's  Word  that  are  well  beaten  by  Christian 
feet.  When  men  want  to  quote  Scripture,  they  quote  the 
old  passages  that  every  body  has  heard.  When  they  want 
a  chapter  read,  they  read  a  chapter  that  all  the  other  peo- 
ple have  been  reading,  so  that  the  church  to-day  is  igno- 
rant of  three-fourths  of  the  Bible.  You  go  into  the  Louvre, 
at  Paris.  You  confine  yourself  to  one  corridor  of  that  op- 
ulent gallery  of  paintings.  As  you  come  out  your  friend 
says  to  you,  "Did  you  see   that  Rembrandt?"     "No." 


SWIJIMLXG  FOlt  LIFE.  115 

"Did  you  see  that  Eubens?"  "No."  "Did  you  see  that 
Titian?"  "No."  "Did  you  see  that  Raphael?"  "No." 
"Well,"  sa3's  your  friend,  "then  you  didn't  see  the 
Louvre."  Now,  my  friends,  I  think  we  are  too  mucli  apt 
to  confine  ourselves  to  one  of  the  great  corridors  of  this 
gallery  of  Scripture  truth,  and  so  much  so  that  there  are 
not  three  persons  in  the  house  to-night  who  have  ever 
noticed  the  all -suggestive  and  powerful  picture  in  the 
words  of  my  text. 

This  text  represents  God  as  a  strong  swimmer  striking 
out  to  push  down  iniquity  and  to  save  the  souls  of  men. 
"  He  shall  spread  forth  his  hands  in  the  midst  of  them,  as 
he  that  swimmeth  spreadeth  forth  his  hands  to  swim." 
The  figure  is  bold  and  many-sided.  Most  of  you  know 
how  to  swim.  Some  of  3^ou  learned  it  in  the  city  school, 
where  this  art  is  taught;  some  of  you  in  boyhood,  in  the 
river  near  your  father's  house ;  some  of  you  since  you 
came  to  manhood  or  womanhood,  while  summering  on  the 
beach  of  the  sea.  You  step  down  in  the  wave,  you  throw 
your  head  back,  you  bring  your  elbows  to  the  chest,  you 
put  the  palms  of  your  hands  downward  and  the  soles  of 
your  feet  outward,  and  you  push  through  the  water  as 
though  you  had  been  born  aquatic.  It  is  a  grand  thing  to 
know  how  to  swim,  not  only  for  yourself,  but  because  you 
will  after  a  while,  perhaps,  have  to  help  others.  I  do  not 
know  any  thing  more  stirring  or  sublime  than  to  see  some 
man  like  Norman  M'Kenzie  leaping  from  the  ship  Madras 
into  the  sea  to  save  Charles  Turner,  who  had  dropped  from 
the  royal -yard  while  trying  to  loosen  the  sail,  bringing 
him  back  to  the  deck  amidst  the  cheering  of  the  passengers 
and  the  crew.  If  a  man  has  not  enthusiasm  enough  to 
hurra  in  such  circumstances,  he  deserves  himself  to  drop 


116  SWJMMLXG  FOR  LIFE. 

into  the  sea  and  have  no  one  help  him.  The  Eoyal  Hu- 
mane Society  of  England  was  established  in  1774,  its  ob- 
ject to  applaud  and  reward  those  who  should  pluck  up 
life  from  the  deep.  Any  one  who  has  performed  such  a 
deed  of  daring  has  all  the  particulars  of  that  bravery  put 
down  in  a  public  record,  and  on  his  breast  a  medal  done 
in  blue  and  gold  and  bronze,  anchor  and  monogram  and 
inscription  telling  to  future  generations  the  bravery  of  the 
man  or  woman  who  had  saved  a  soul  from  drowning. 
But,  my  friends,  if  it  is  such  a  worthy  thing  to  save  a  body 
from  the  deep,  I  ask  you  if  it  is  not  a  worthier  thing  to 
save  an  immortal  soul  ?  And  you  shall  see,  to-night,  the 
Son  of  God  step  forth  for  this  achievement.  "He  shall 
spread  forth  his  hands  in  the  midst  of  them,  as  he  that 
swimmeth  spreadeth  forth  his  hands  to  swim." 

In  order  to  understand  the  full  force  of  this  figure,  you 
need  to  realize,  first  of  all,  that  our  race  is  in  a  sinking 
condition.  You  sometimes  hear  people  talking  of  what 
they  consider  the  most  beautiful  words  in  our  language. 
One  man  says  it  is  "home;"  another  man  says  it  is  the 
word  "mother;"  another  says  it  is  the  word  "Jesus;"  but 
I  will  tell  you  the  bitterest  word  in  all  our  language,  the 
word  most  angry  and  baleful,  the  word  saturated  with  the 
most  trouble,  the  word  that  accounts  for  all  the  loathsome- 
ness, and  the  pang,  and  the  outrage,  and  the  harrowing; 
and  that  word  is  "Sin."  You  spell  it  with  three  letters, 
and  yet  those  three  letters  describe  the  circumference  and 
pierce  the  diameter  of  every  thing  bad  on  earth  and  in 
perdition.  Sin !  it  is  a  sibilant  word.  You  can  not  pro- 
nounce it  without  giving  the  siss  of  the  flame  or  the  hiss 
of  the  serpent.  Sin  !  And,  then,  if  you  add  three  letters 
to  that  word,  it  describes  every  person  in  this  house,  and 


SWIMMIXG  FOR  LIFE.  117 

every  one  in  the  world — sinner.  That  is  you  and  me. 
We  have  outraged  the  law  of  God;  not  occasionally,  or 
now  and  then,  but  perpetually.  The  Bible  declares  it. 
Hark !  it  thunders,  two  claps,  "  The  heart  is  deceitful  above 
all  things,  and  desperately  wicked."  "The  soul  that  sin- 
neth,  it  shall  die."  What  the  Bible  says  our  own  con- 
science affirms.  After  Judge  Morgan  had  sentenced  Lady 
Jane  Grey  to  death,  his  conscience  troubled  him  so  much 
for  the  deed  that  he  became  insane,  and  all  through  his  in- 
sanity he  kept  saying,  "Take  her  away  from  me!  Lady 
Jane  Gre3^  Take  her  away  !  Lady  Jane  Grey."  It  was 
the  voice  of  his  conscience.  And  no  man  ever  does  any 
thing  wrong,  however  great  or  small,  but  his  conscience 
brings  that  matter  before  him,  and  at  every  step  of  his 
misbehavior  it  says,  "  Wrong,  wrong." 

Sin  is  a  leprosy,  sin  is  a  paralysis,  sin  is  a  consumption, 
sin  is  pollution,  sin  is  death.  Give  it  a  fair  chance,  and  it 
will  swamp  you,  bod}'-,  mind,  and  soul,  forever.  In  this 
world  it  only  gives  a  faint  intimation  of  its  virulence;  but 
after  for  a  thousand  quadrillion  of  years  it  has  ransacked 
your  soul  —  what  then?  You  see  a  patient  in  the  first 
stages  of  tyjihoid  fever.  The  cheek  is  somewhat  flushed, 
the  hands  somewhat  hot,  preceded  by  a  slight  chill. 
"  Why,"  you  say,  "  typhoid  fever  does  not  seem  to  be 
much  of  a  disease."  But  wait  until  the  patient  has  been 
six  weeks  under  it,  and  all  his  energies  have  been  wrung 
out,  and  he  is  too  weak  to  lift  his  little  finger,  and  his  in- 
tellect is  gone,  then  you  see  the  full  havoc  of  the  disease. 
Now,  sin  in  this  world  is  an  ailment  which  is  only  in  its 
very  first  stages;  but  after  the  grave,  it  is  rending,  blasting, 
all -devouring,  all-consuming,  eternal  typhoid.  Oh,  if  we 
could  see  our  unpardoned  sins  as  God  sees  them,  our  teeth 


lis  SWIMMIXG  FOR  LIFE. 

would  chatter,  and  our  knees  would  knock  together,  and 
our  respiration  would  be  choked,  and  our  heart  would 
break!  If  your  sins  are  unfoi'given,  they  are  bearing 
down  on  you,  and  you  are  sinking,  sinking  away  from  hap- 
piness, sinking  away  from  God,  sinking  away  from  every 
thing  that  is  good  and  blessed,  sinking  forever. 

Then  what  do  we  want?  A  swimmer!  A  strong 
swimmer!  A  swift  swimmer!  And,  blessed  be  God,  in 
my  text  we  have  him  announced  :  "He  shall  spread  forth 
his  hands  in  the  midst  of  them,  as  he  that  swimmeth  spread- 
eth  forth  his  hands  to  swim."  You  have  noticed  that 
when  a  swimmer  goes  out  to  rescue  any  one,  he  puts  off 
his  heavy  apparel.  He  must  not  have  any  such  impedi- 
ment about  him  if  he  is  going  to  do  this  great  deed.  And 
when  Christ  stepped  forth  to  save  us,  he  shook  off  the  san- 
dals of  heaven,  and  his  feet  were  free ;  and  he  laid  aside 
the  robe  of  eternal  royalty,  and  his  arms  were  free ;  and 
then  he  stepped  down  into  the  wave  of  our  transgression, 
and  it  came  up  over  his  wounded  feet,  and  it  came  above 
the  spear-stab  in  his  side  —  ay,  it  dashed  to  the  lacerated 
temple,  the  high-water  mark  of  his  anguish.  Then,  rising 
above  the  flood,  "He  stretched  forth  his  hands  in  the  midst 
of  them,  as  he  that  swimmeth  spreadeth  forth  his  hands  to 
swim." 

If  you  have  ever  watched  a  swimmer,  you  notice  that 
his  whole  body  is  brought  into  play.  The  arms  are  flexed, 
the  hands  drive  the  water  back,  the  knees  are  active,  the 
head  is  tossed  back  to  escape  strangulation,  the  whole  body 
is  in  propulsion.  And  when  Christ  sprung  out  into  the 
deep  to  save  us,  he  threw  his  entire  nature  into  it,  all  his 
Godhead,  his  omniscience,  his  goodness,  his  love,  his  om- 
nipotence— head,  heart,  eyes,  hands,  feet.     We  were  so  far 


SWIMMIXO   FDli  LIFK.  119 

out  on  the  sea,  and  so  deep  down  in  the  waves  that  noth- 
ing short  of  an  entire  God  could  save  us.  Christ  leaped 
out  for  our  rescue,  saying,  "Lo!  I  come  to  do  thy  will," 
and  all  the  sui-ges  of  human  and  Satanic  hate  beat  against 
him;  and  those  who  watched  him  fi'om  the  gates  of 
heaven  feared  he  would  go  down  under  the  wave,  and, 
instead  of  saving  others,  would  himself  perish;  but,  put- 
ting his  breast  to  the  foam,  and  shaking  the  surf  from 
his  locks,  he  came  on,  on,  until  he  is  to-night  within 
the  reach  of  every  one  heic.  Eye  omniscient,  heart  in- 
finite, arm  omnipotent.  Mighty  to  save,  even  unto  the 
uttermost.  Oh,  it  was  not  half  a  God  that  trampled  down 
bellowing  Gennesaret !  It  was  not  a  quarter  of  a  God  that 
mastered  the  demons  of  Gadara.  It  was  not  two-thirds 
of  a  God  that  lifted  up  Lazarus  into  the  arms  of  his  over- 
joyed sisters.  It  was  not  a  fragment  of  a  God  that  offered 
pardon  and  peace  to  all  the  race.  No.  This  mighty  swim- 
mer threw  his  grandeur,  his  glory,  his  might,  his  wisdom, 
his  omnipotence,  and  his  eternity  into  this  one  act.  It  took 
both  hands  of  God  to  save  us,  both  feet.  IIow  do  I  prove 
it?  On  the  cross,  were  not  both  hands  nailed?  On  the 
cross,  were  not  both  feet  nailed?  His  entire  nature  in- 
volved in  our  redemption ! 

If  you  have  lived  much  by  the  water,  you  have  noticed 
also  that  if  any  one  is  going  out  to  rescue  the  drowning,  he 
must  be  independent,  self-reliant,  able  to  go  alone.  There 
may  be  a  time  when  he  must  spring  out  to  save  one,  and 
he  can  not  get  a  life-boat;  and  if  he  goes  out,  and  he  has 
not  strength  enough  to  bear  himself  up  and  bear  another 
up,  he  will  sink,  and,  instead  of  dragging  one  co'-pse  out  of 
the  torrent,  you  will  have  two  to  drag  out.  When  Christ 
sprung  out  into  the  sea  to  deliver  us,  he  had  no  life-buoy. 


120  SWULVIXO  FOB  LIFE. 

His  Father  did  not  help  him.  Alone  in  the  wine-press. 
Alone  in  the  pang.  Alone  in  the  darkness.  Alone  on 
the  mountain.  Alone  in  the  sea.  If  he  saves  us,  he  shall 
have  all  the  credit,  for  "there  was  none  to  help."  No  oar. 
No  wing.  No  ladder.  When  Nathaniel  Lyon  fell  in  the 
battle  charge  in  front  of  his  troops,  he  had  a  whole  army 
to  cheer  him ;  when  Marshal  Ney  sprung  into  the  contest, 
and  plunged  in  the  spurs  till  the  horse's  flanks  spurted 
blood,  all  France  applauded  him.  But  Jesus  alone  !  "  Of 
the  people  there  was  none  to  help."  "All  forsook  him  and 
fled."  Oh,  it  was  not  a  flotilla  that  sailed  down  and  saved 
us!  It  was  not  a  cluster  of  gondolas  that  came  over  the 
wave.  It  was  one  person,  independent  and  alone,  "  spread- 
ing out  his  hands  among  us  as  a  swimmer  spreadeth  forth 
his  hands  to  swim." 

Behold,  then,  to-night,  the  spectacle  of  a  drowning  soul, 
and  Christ  the  swimmer.  I  believe  it  was  in  1848  when 
there  were  six  English  soldiers  of  the  Fifth  Fusiliers  who 
were  hanging  to  the  bottom  of  a  capsized  boat  —  a  boat 
that  had  been  upset  b}^  a  squall  three  miles  from  shore. 
It  was  in  the  night;  but  one  man  swam  mightily  for  the 
beach,  guided  by  the  dark  mountains  that  lifted  their  top 
through  the  night.  He  c.nme  to  the  beach.  He  found  a 
shoreman  who  consented  to  go  with  him  and  save  the 
other  men,  and  they  put  out.  It  was  some  time  before 
they  could  find  the  place  where  the  men  were;  but  after  a 
while  they  heard  tlieir  cry,  "Help!  help  !"  and  they  bore 
down  to  them,  and  they  saved  them  and  brought  them  to 
shore.  Oh  that  to-night  our  cry  might  be  lifted  long,  loud, 
and  shrill,  till  Christ  the  swimmer  shall  come  and  take  us, 
lest  we  drop  a  thousand  fathoms  down !  for  a  man  who 
will  not  pray  will  perish. 


SWIMMIXO  FOR  LIFE.  121 

If  you  have  been  much  by  the  water,  you  know  very 
we'll  that  when  one  is  in  peril  help  must  come  very  quick- 
ly, or  it  will  be  of  no  use.  One  minute  may  decide  every 
thing.  Immediate  help  the  man  wants,  or  no  help  at  all. 
Now,  that  is  just  the  kind  of  a  relief  the  sinner  wants. 
The  case  is  urgent,  imminent,  instantaneous.  See  that 
soul  sinking.  Son  of  God,  lay  hold  of  him !  It  is  his  last 
hour  of  mercy.  Be  quick !  be  quick !  Oh,  I  wish  you  all 
understood  how  urgent  this  Gospel  is !  There  was  a  man 
in  the  navy  at  sea  who  had  been  severely  whipped  for  bad 
behavior,  and  he  was  maddened  by  it,  and  he  leaped  into 
the  sea,  and  no  sooner  had  he  leaped  into  the  sea  than, 
quick  as  lightning,  an  albatross  swooped  upon  him.  The 
drowning  man,  brought  to  his  senses,  seized  hold  of  the  al- 
batross and  held  on.  The  fluttering  of  the  bird  kept  him 
on  the  wave  until  relief  could  come.  Would  that  to-night 
the  dove  of  God's  convicting,  converting,  and  saving  Spii'it 
miglit  flash  froni  the  tlirone  upon  your  soul,  and  that  you, 
taking  hold  of  its  potent  wing,  might  live,  and  live  forever. 

I  want  to  persuade  5'ou  to-night  to  lay  hold  of  this 
strong  swimmer,  "  No,"  \'ou  say,  "it  is  always  ruin." 
There  is  not  a  river  or  a  lake  but  has  a  calamity  resultant 
from  the  fact  that,  when  a  strong  swimmer  went  out  to 
save  a  sinking  man,  the  drowning  man  clutched  him,  threw 
his  arms  around  him,  pinioned  his  arms,  and  they  both 
went  down  together.  When  3'ou  are  saving  a  man  in  the 
water,  you  do  not  want  to  come  up  by  his  face ;  3^ou  want 
to  come  up  by  his  back.  You  do  not  want  him  to  take 
hold  of  3'ou  while  you  take  hold  of  him.  But,  blessed  be 
God,  Jesus  Christ  is  so  strong  a  swimmer  he  comes,  not  to 
our  back,  but  to  our  face,  and  he  asks  us  to  throw  around 
him  the  arms  of  our  love,  and  then  promises  to  take  us  to 

6 


122  SWIMMING  FOR  LIFE. 

the  beach,  and  he  will  do  it.  Do  not  trust  that  plank  of 
good  works.  Do  not  trust  that  shivered  spar  of  your  own 
righteousness.  Christ  only  can  give  you  transportation. 
Turn  your  face  upon  him  to-night  as  the  dying  martyr 
did  in  olden  days  when  he  cried  out,  "None  but  Christ! 
None  but  Christ!"  Jesus  has  taken  millions  to  the  land, 
and  he  is  willing  to  take  you  there.  Ob,  what  hardness 
to  shove  him  back  when  he  has  been  swimming  all  the 
way  from  the  throne  of  God  to  where  you  are  to-night, 
and  is  ready  to  swim  all  the  way  back  again,  taking  your 
redeemed  spirit! 

I  have  sometimes  thought  what  a  spectacle  the  ocean  bed 
will  present  when  in  the  lust  day  the  water  is  all  drawn  off. 
It  will  be  a  line  of  wrecks  from  beach  to  beach.  There  is 
where  the  harpooners  went  down.  There  is  where  the 
line-of-battle  ships  went  down.  There  is  where  the  mer- 
chantmen went  down.  There  is  where  the  steamers  went 
down.  What  a  spectacle  in  the  last  day  when  the  water 
is  drawn  off!  But  oh,  how  much  more  solemn  if  we  had 
an  eye  to  see  the  spiritual  wrecks  and  the  places  where 
they  foundered !  You  would  find  thousands  along  these 
streets.  Coming  here  to-night,  if  you  had  such  superb  eye- 
sight, standing  at  the  door  while  3'et  this  room  was  emp- 
ty, you  might  then  have  seen  thousands  of  such  marks 
of  wrecks  scattered  all  through  these  pews,  the  places 
"where  on  other  Sabbaths  immortal  men  were  invited  to 
heaven,  and  refused  it.  Christ  came  down  in  their  aw- 
ful catastrophe,  putting  out  for  their  soul,  "spreading 
forth  his  hands  as  a  swimmer  spreadeth  forth  his  hands  to 
swim  ;"  but  they  thrust  him  in  the  sore  heart,  and  they 
smote  his  fair  cheek,  and  they  perished ;  the  storm  and 
the  darkness  swallowing  them  up.     Are  there  any  here 


SWIMJIIXO  FOB  LIFE.  123 

now  who  feel  that  they  arc  sinking?  Do  they  feel  the 
need  of  a  Divine  arm?  Christ  is  ready  now  to  step  out 
for  their  present  and  their  eternal  salvation.  I  ask  you  to 
lay  hold  of  this  Christ,  and  lay  hold  of  him  now.  You 
will  sink  without  him.  Oh  that  God  this  moment  would 
break  the  madness  of  those  who  will  not  have  the  mercy 
and  the  favor  of  that  Christ  who  is  the  only  Saviour  the 
world  ever  has  had,  or  ever  will  have!  Say,  do  you  want 
to  die?  Do  you  covet  ruin?  Do  you  despise  heaven? 
Have  you  lifted  the  poniard  with  which  to  stab  the  life 
of  your  immortal  soul?  Sinner,  thou  knowest  not  where 
thou  art!  On  the  verge  of  what  woe.  On  the  waves  of 
what  sea.  Sinking.  Sinking.  Sinking.  From  horizon 
to  horizon  not  one  sail  in  sight.  Only  one  strong  swim- 
mer, with  head  flung  back  and  arms  outspread  as  "  he  that 
swimmeth  spreadeth  forth  his  hands  to  swim."  I  pray 
God  that  he  will  lead  you  into  the  peace  and  hope  of  the 
Gospel !  You  will  never  have  so  fair  a  chance  as  this  very 
one  in  which  to  accept  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

I  hear  a  great  many  in  the  audience  saying,  "  Well,  I 
would  like  to  be  a  Christian  to-night.  I  am  going  to  work 
to  become  a  Christian."  My  brother,  you  begin  wrong. 
When  a  man  is  drowning,  and  a  strong  swimmer  comes  out 
to  help  him,  he  says  to  the  man,  "  Now,  be  quiet.  Put  your 
arm  on  my  arm  or  on  my  shoulder,  but  don't  struggle, 
don't  try  to  help  yourself,  and  I'll  take  you  ashore.  The 
more  you  struggle  and  the  more  you  try  to  help  yourself, 
the  more  you  impede  me.  Now,  be  quiet,  and  I'll  take 
you  ashore."  When  Christ,  the  strong  swimmer,  comes 
out  to  save  a  soul,  the  sinner  says,  "That's  right.  I  am 
glad  to  see  Jesus,  and  I  am  going  to  help  him.  I  am  go- 
ing to  do  this,  that,  and  the  other  thing  that  will  help  him ; 


124  SWIMMING  FOR  LIFE. 

and  I  am  going  to  praj  more,  and  that  will  help  him;  and 
I  am  going  to  weep  extravagantly  over  my  sins,  and  that 
will  help  him."  No,  my  brother,  it  will  not.  Stop  your 
doing.  Christ  will  do  all  or  none.  You  can  not  lift  an 
ounce,  you  can  not  move  an  inch,  in  this  matter  of  your 
redemption.  This  is  the  difficulty  which  keeps  thousands 
of  souls  out  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  It  is  because  they 
can  not  consent  to  let  Jesus  Christ  begin  and  complete  the 
work  of  their  redemption.  "Why,"  you  say,  "then  is 
there  nothing  for  me  to  do?"  Only  one  thing  have  you 
to  do,  and  that  is,  to  lay  hold  of  Christ,  and  let  him  achieve 
your  salvation,  and  achieve  it  all.  I  do  not  know  whether 
I  make  the  matter  plain  or  not.  I  simply  want  to  show 
you  that  man  can  not  save  himself,  but  that  the  Al- 
mighty Son  of  God  can  do  it,  and  will  do  it,  if  you  ask 
him.  Oh,  fling  your  two  arms,  the  arms  of  your  trust  and 
love,  around  this  omnipotent  swimmer  of  the  cross  I 

My  sermon  is  about  ended,  and  the  stenographer  has 
taken  it  down  with  his  pencil.  Oh  that  the  Holy  Spirit 
might  write  it  on  all  your  hearts!  How  many  will  be 
saved  through  this  particular  service?  How  many  will 
be  lost?  These  are  the  two  questions  with  which  I  came 
upon  this  platform.  After  the  benediction  there  will  be 
two  strong  currents,  one  current  bearing  mightily  toward 
heaven,  the  other  bearing  mightily  toward  hell ;  and  in 
one  or  the  other  of  these  currents  you  will  be  caught.  In 
the  one  you  will  be  carried  out  to  where  it  empties  into 
the  ocean  whose  waves  are  fire,  and  whose  ships  are  fire, 
and  whose  beach  is  fire,  or  you  will  be  carried  into  a 
current  which  will  empty  into  a  sea  whose  surges  beat 
eternal  music  against  the  throne  of  God.  Oh,  it  is  a  sol- 
emn minute !     Have  you  ever  seen  them  trying  to  resusci- 


SWIMMING  FOR  LIFE.  125 

tate  a  half-drowned  person  ?  You  remember  the  manipu- 
lation. You  remember  they  tried  every  possible  art.  You 
remember  how  they  knelt  down  and  put  their  lips  to  the 
lips  of  the  insensible  patient,  and  breathed  and  breathed, 
trying  to  get  the  lungs  to  work ;  and  at  last,  when  he  just 
gave  one  feeble  sigh,  they  shouted  all  around  the  room, 
"He  lives!  he  lives!"  And  now,  to-night,  your  drowning 
soul,  0  sinner,  I  hope,  is  by  the  grace  of  Christ  to  be  resus- 
citated. We  have  gathered  around  you.  Would  that  this 
might  be  the  hour  when  you  begin  to  live!  The  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  steps  down,  he  gets  on  his  knee,  he  puts  bis 
lip  to  your  lip,  and  would  breathe  pardon  and  life  and 
heaven  into  your  immortal  soul.  God  grant  that  this  hour 
there  may  be  thousands  of  souls  resuscitated  from  this  aw- 
ful spiritual  drowning.  I  stand  on  the  deck  of  the  old 
Gospel  ship  amidst  a  crowd  of  passengers,  and  yet  my  soul 
is  wrung  with  sorrow  because  I  see  some  of  you  overboard, 
and  I  can  not  help  you.  May  the  living  Christ  this  hour 
put  out  for  your  rescue,  "spreading  forth  his  hands  in  the 
midst  of  3'ou,  as  a  swimmer  spreadeth  forth  his  hands  to 
swim."  Oh  that  salvation  might  come  to  your  house  this 
night!  You  want  religion  yourselves,  and  your  families 
need  the  same  religion.  Another  opportunity  for  heaven 
is  closing,  closing,  closing. 

"Ye  sinners,  seek  his  grace, 
His  wratli  ye  can  not  bear; 
Fly  to  the  slielter  of  his  love, 
And  find  salvation  there." 


il>G  THE   ClJEItiTIAN  AT  THE  BALLOT-BOX. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  AT  THE  BALLOT-BOX. 

"  Some  therefore  cried  one  thing,  and  some  another:  for  the  assembly  was 
confused ;  and  the  more  part  knew  not  wherefore  they  were  come  together. 
And  they  drew  Alexander  out  of  the  multitude,  the  Jews  putting  him  for- 
ward. And  Alexander  beckoned  with  the  hand,  and  would  have  made  his 
defense  unto  the  people.  But  when  they  knew  that  he  was  a  Jew,  all  with 
one  voice  about  the  space  of  two  hours  cried  out.  Great  is  Diana  of  the 
Ephesians." — Acts  xix.,  32,  33,  34. 

EPHESUS  was  upside  down.  A  manufacturer  of  sil- 
ver boxes  for  holding  heathen  images  had  called  his 
laborers  together  to  discuss  the  behavior  of  one  Paul,  who 
had  been  in  public  places  assaulting  image- worship,  and 
consequently  very  much  damaging  that  particular  business. 
There  was  great  excitement  in  the  city.  People  stood  in 
knots  along  the  streets,  violently  gesticulating,  and  calling 
each  other  hard  names.  Some  of  the  people  favored  the 
policy  of  the  silversmith  ;  other  people  favored  the  policy 
of  Paul.  There  were  great  moral  questions  involved;  but 
these  did  not  bother  them  at  all.  The  only  question  about 
which  they  seemed  to  be  interested  was  concerning  the 
wages  and  the  salaried  positions.  The  silversmith  and  his 
compeers  had  put  up  factories  at  great  expense  for  the 
making  of  these  silver  boxes;  and  now,  if  this  new  policy 
is  to  be  inaugurated,  the  business  will  go  down,  the  labor- 
ers will  be  thrown  out  of  employment,  and  the  whole  city 
will  suffer.  Well,  what  is  to  be  done?  "Call  a  conven- 
tion," says  some  one ;  for  in  all  ages  a  convention  has  been 


THE  CHRISTIAN  AT  THE  BALLOT-BOX.  127 

a  panacea  for  public  evils.  The  convention  is  called,  and, 
as  thej  want  the  largest  room  in  the  cit}'-,  they  take  the 
theatre.  Having  there  assembled,  they  all  want  to  get  the 
floor,  and  they  all  want  to  talk  at  once.  You  know  what 
excitement  that  always  makes  in  a  convention,  where  a 
great  many  people  want  to  talk  at  once.  Some  cried  one 
thing,  some  cried  another.  Some  wanted  to  denounce, 
some  wanted  to  resolve.  After  a  while  a  prominent  man 
gets  the  floor,  and  he  begins  to  speak ;  but  they  very  soon 
hiss  him  down,  and  then  the  confusion  rises  into  worse 
uproar,  and  they  begin  to  shout,  all  of  them  together,  and 
they  keep  on  until  they  are  red  in  the  face  and  hoarse  in 
the  throat,  for  two  long  hours  crying  out,  "  Great  is  Diana 
of  the  Ephesians !     Great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephesians !" 

The  whole  scene  reminds  me  of  the  excitement  we  have 
almost  every  autumn  at  the  elections.  While  that  goddess 
Diana  has  lost  her  worshipers,  and  her  temples  have  gone 
into  the  dust,  our  American  people  want  to  set  up  a  god 
in  place  of  it,  and  they  want  us  all  to  bow  down  before  it; 
and  that  god  is  Political  Party.  Considering  our  superior 
civilization,  I  have  to  declare  to  you  that  the  Ephesian  idol- 
atry was  less  offensive  in  the  sight  of  God  than  is  this  all- 
absorbing  American  partisanship. 

While  there  are  honest  men,  true  men.  Christian  men, 
who  stand  in  both  political  parties,  and  who  come  into  the 
autumnal  elections  resolving  to  serve  their  city  or  their 
State  or  the  nation  in  the  best  possible  way,  I  have  noticed 
also  that  with  many  it  is  a  mere  contest  between  the  ins 
and  the  outs — those  who  are  in  trying  to  stay  in  and  keep 
the  outs  out,  and  those  who  are  out  trying  to  get  in  and 
thrust  the  ins  out.  And  one  party  cries,  "Great  is  Diana 
of  the  Ephesians!"  and   the  other  party  cries,  "Great  is 


128  THE  CHRISTIAN  AT  THE  BALLOT-BOX. 

Diana  of  the  Ephesians!"  neither  of  them  honest  enough 
to  say,  "  Great  is  my  pocket-book !" 

Once  or  twice  a  year  it  is  my  custom  to  talk  to  the  peo- 
ple about  public  affairs  from  what  I  call  a  Christian  stand- 
point, and  this  morning  I  have  chosen  for  that  duty.  I 
hope  to  say  a  practical  word.  History  tells  us  of  a  sermon 
once  preached  amidst  the  Highlands  of  Scotland — a  sermon 
two  hours  long — on  the  sin  of  luxury,  where  there  were 
not  more  than  three  pairs  of  shoes  in  the  audience;  and 
during  our  last  war  a  good  man  went  into  a  hospital  dis- 
tributing tracts,  and  gave  a  tract  on  "The  Sin  of  Dancing" 
to  a  man  both  of  whose  legs  had  been  amputated !  But  I 
hope  this  morning  to  present  an  appropriate  and  adapted 
word,  as  next  Tuesday,  at  the  ballot-box,  great  affairs  are 
to  be  settled.  The  Eev.  Dr.  Emmons,  in  the  early  history 
of  our  country,  in  Massachusetts,  preached  about  the  elec- 
tion of  Thomas  Jefferson  to  the  Presidency.  The  Eev.  Dr. 
Mayhew,  of  Boston,  in  the  early  days  of  our  republic, 
preached  about  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act.  There  are 
times  when  ministers  of  Christ  must  look  off  upon  public 
affairs  and  discuss  them.  We  need  go  back  to  no  example. 
Ev^ery  man  is,  before  God,  responsible  for  his  own  duty. 
If  the  Norwegian  boasts  of  his  home  of  rocks,  and  the 
Siberian  is  pleased  with  his  land  of  perpetual  snow;  if  the 
Eoman  thought  that  the  muddy  Tiber  was  the  favored  riv- 
er in  the  sight  of  heaven,  and  if  the  Laplander  shivers  out 
his  eulogy  of  his  native  clime,  and  if  the  Chinese  have  pity 
for  any  body  born  outside  the  "flowery  kingdom,"  shall  not 
we,  born  under  these  fair  skies,  and  standing  day  by  day 
amidst  these  glorious  civil  and  religious  liberties,  be  pub- 
lic-spirited? I  propose  to  tell  the  people  very  plainly 
■what  I  consider  to  be  their  Christian  duty  at  the  ballot-box. 


THE  CHBISTIAN  AT  THE  BALLOT-EOX.  129 

First,  set  yourselves  against  all  political  falsehood.  The 
most  monstrous  lies  ever  told  in  this  country  are  during 
the  elections.  I  stop  at  the  door  of  a  Democratic  meeting 
and  listen,  and  hear  that  the  Eepublicans  are  thieves.  I 
stop  at  the  door  of  a  Kepublican  meeting  and  listen,  and 
hear  that  the  Democrats  are  scoundrels.  Our  public  men 
microscopized,  and  the  truth  distorted.  Who  believes  a 
tenth  part  of  what  he  reads  or  hears  in  the  autumnal  elec- 
tions? Men  who  at  other  seasons  of  the  year  are  very 
careful  in  their  speech  become  peddlers  of  scandal. 

In  the  Far  East  there  is  a  place  where,  once  a  year,  they 
let  the  people  do  as  they  please  and  say  what  they  please, 
and  the  place  is  full  of  uproar,  misrule,  and  wickedness, 
and  they  call  it  the  "  Devil's  day."  The  nearest  approxi- 
mation to  that  in  this  country  has  been  the  first  Tuesday 
in  November.  The  community  at  such  times  seem  to  say, 
"Go  to,  now;  let  us  have  a  good  time  at  lying."  Promi- 
nent candidates  for  office  are  denounced  as  renegade  and 
inebriate.  A  small  lie  will  start  in  the  corner  of  a  country 
newspaper,  and  keep  on  running  until  it  has  captured  the 
printing-presses  of  the  whole  continent.  What  garbling 
of  speeches!  What  misinterpretation  of  motives  !  What 
misrepresentation  of  individual  antecedents!  To  capture 
the  unwary  you  shall  have  a  ticket  witli  Democratic  head- 
ing and  Republican  names  following,  and  then  a  Republican 
heading  with  Democratic  names  following;  and  the  poor 
man  will  stand  at  the  polls  bewildered,  at  last,  perhaps, 
voting  for  those  whom  he  has  been  three  weeks  vociferous- 
ly denouncing.  O  Christian  men  !  frown  upon  this  po- 
litical falsehood !  Remember  that  a  political  lie  is  as  black 
as  any  other  kind  of  a  lie.  God  has  recorded  all  tlie  false- 
hoods that  have  been  told  at  the  cit}-,  State,  or  national 

6* 


130  TUE  CHRISTIAN  AT  THE  BALLOT-BOX. 

elections  since  the  foundation  of  this  Government;  and, 
though  the  perpetrators  and  their  victims  may  have  gone 
into  the  dust,  in  the  last  day  judgment  will  be  awarded. 
The  falsehoods  that  Aaron  Burr  breathed  into  the  ear  of 
Blennerhasset,  the  slanders  that  Lieutenant-general  Gage 
proclaimed  about  George  Washington,  the  misrepresenta- 
tions in  regard  to  James  Monroe,  are  as  fresh  on  God's 
book  to-day  as  the  lie  that  was  printed  last  week  about 
Samuel  J.  Tilden  or  Governor  Dix.  "And  all  liars  shall 
have  their  part  in  the  lake  which  burneth  with  fire  and 
brimstone :  which  is  the  second  death." 

Again,  /  counsel  you  as  Christian  men  to  set  yourselves 
against  the  misuse  of  money  in  2^olitical  campaigns.  Of  the 
tens  of  thousands  of  dollars  already  spent  this  autumn,  how 
much  of  the  amount  do  you  suppose  has  been  properly 
used?  You  have  a  right  to  spend  money  for  the  publishing 
of  political  tracts,  for  the  establishment  of  organizations  for 
the  carrying-out  of  what  you  consider  to  be  the  best;  you 
have  a  right  to  appeal  to  the  reason  of  men  by  argument 
and  statistics  and  by  facts;  but  he  who  puts  a  bribe  into 
the  hand  of  a  voter,  or  plies  weak  men  with  mercenary  and 
corrupt  motives,  commits  a  sin  against  God  and  the  nation. 
Bribery  is  one  of  the  most  appalling  sins  of  this  country. 
God  says,  "  Fires  shall  consume  the  tabernacles  of  bribery." 
Have  nothing  to  do  with  such  a  sin,  O  Christian  man ! 
Fling  it  from  the  ballot-box.  Hand  over  to  the  police  the 
man  who  attempts  to  tamper  with  your  vote,  and  remem- 
ber that  elections  that  can  not  be  carried  without  bribes 
ought  never  to  be  carried  at  all. 

Again,  /  ash  you  as  Christian  men  to  set  yourselves 
against  the  dissipations  that  hover  over  the  ballot-box.  Let  me 
say  that  no  man  can  afford  to  go  into  political  life  who  is 


THE  CHRISTIAN  AT  THE  BALLOT-BOX.  131 

not  a  teetotaler.  Hot  political  discussion  somehow  creates 
an  unnatural  thirst,  and  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  have 
gone  down  into  drunkenness  through  political  life.  After 
an  exciting  canvass  through  the  evening  you  must  "take 
something;"  and  rising  in  the  morning  with  less  animation 
than  usual,  you  must  "take  something;"  and  going  off 
among  your  comrades  through  the  forenoon,  you  meet  po- 
litical friends,  and  you  must  "take  something;"  and  in  the 
afternoon  you  meet  other  political  friends,  and  you  must 
"take  something;"  and  before  night  has  come  something 
has  taken  you.  There  are  but  few  cases  where  men  have 
been  able  to  stand  up  against  the  dissipations  of  political 
life.  Joseph  was  a  politician,  but  he  maintained  his  integ- 
rity. Daniel  was  a  politician,  but  he  was  a  teetotaler  to 
the  last.  Abraham  was  a  politician,  but  he  was  always 
characterized  as  the  father  of  the  fj^ithful.  Moses  was  a 
politician,  the  grandest  of  them  ;  but  he  honored  God  more 
than  he  did  the  Pharaohs.  And  there  are  hundreds  of 
Christian  men  now  in  the  political  parties,  maintaining 
their  integrity,  even  when  they  are  obliged  to  stand  amidst 
the  blasted,  lecherous,  and  loathsome  crew  that  sometimes 
surround  the  ballot-box  ;  these  Christian  men  doing  their 
political  duty,  and  then  coming  back  to  the  prayer-meetings 
and  Christian  circles  as  pure  as  when  they  went  out.  But 
that  is  not  the  ordinary  circumstance;  that  is  the  excep- 
tion. How  often  you  see  men  coming  back  from  the  polit- 
ical conflict,  and  their  eye  is  glazed,  and  their  check  has  an 
unnatural  flush,  and  they  talk  louder  than  they  usually  do, 
and  at  the  least  provocation  they  will  bet,  and  you  say 
they  are  convivial,  or  they  are  exceedingly  vivacious,  or 
you  apply  some  other  sweet  name  to  them ;  but  God  knows 
they  are  drunk  I     Some  of  you,  a  month  or  six  weeks  ago, 


132  THE  CIISTSTIAN  AT  THE  BALLOT-BOX. 

liad  no  more  religion  than  you  ought  to  have,  and  after  the 
elections  are  over,  to  calculate  how  much  religion  you  have 
left  will  be  a  sum  in  vulgar  fractions.  Oh,  the  pressure  is 
tremendous! 

How  many  mighty  intellects  have  gone  down  under  the 
dissipation  of  politics !  I  think  of  one  who  came  from  the 
"West.  He  was  able  to  stand  out  against  the  whole  Amer- 
ican Senate.  God  had  given  him  faculties  enough  to 
govern  a  kingdom,  or  to  frame  a  constitution.  His  voice 
was  terrible  to  his  country's  enemies,  and  a  mighty  inspi- 
ration in  the  day  of  national  peril.  He  was  in  a  fair  way 
to  become  our  President ;  but  twenty  glasses  of  strong 
drink  a  day  were  his  usual  allowance,  and  he  went  down 
into  the  habits  of  a  confirmed  inebriate.  Alas  for  him! 
Though  a  costly  monument  has  been  reared  over  his  rest- 
ing-place, and  though  in  the  presence  of  the  laying  of  the 
corner-stone  there  stood  military  and  ecclesiastical  digni- 
taries, the  young  men  of  this  country  shall  not  be  denied 
the  awful  lesson  that  the  agency  by  which  the  world  was 
robbed  of  one  of  its  mightiest  intellects,  and  our  country 
of  one  of  its  ablest  constitutional  defenders,  was  the  dis- 
sipation of  political  life.  You  want  to  know  who  I  mean  ? 
Young  man,  ask  your  father  when  you  get  home.  The  ad- 
verse tide  is  fearful,  and  I  warn  you  against  it! 

You  need  not  go  far  off  to  find  the  worn-out  politician. 
Here  he  is,  stumbling  along  the  highway,  his  limbs  hardly 
able  to  hold  him  up.  Bent  over  and  pale  with  exhausting 
sickness.  Surly  to  any  body  who  accosts  him.  His  last 
decent  article  of  apparel  pawned  for  strong  drink.  Glad 
if,  when  going  by  a  grocery,  some  low  acquaintance  invites 
him  in  to  take  a  sip  of  ale,  and  then  wiping  his  lip  with 
bis  greasy  sleeve.     Kicked  off  the  steps  by  men  who  once 


THE  CHRISTIAN  AT  THE  BALLOT-BOX.  133" 

were  proud  to  be  liis  constituents.  Manhood  obliterated. 
Lip  blistered  wiili  a  curse.  Scars  of  brutal  assault  on 
cheek  and  brow.  Foul-mouthed.  A  crouching,  stagger- 
ing, wheezing  wretch.  No  friends.  No  God.  No  hope. 
No  heaven.  That  is  your  worn-out  politician.  That  is 
what  some  of  you  will  become  unless  by  this  morning's 
warning,  and  the  mercy  of  God,  your  steps  are  arrested. 
Oh,  there  are  no  words  enough  potent,  enough  portentous, 
enough  consuming,  enough  damning,  to  describe  the  hor- 
rible drunkenness  that  has  rolled  over  this  land,  and  that 
has  bent  down  the  necks  of  some  of  the  mightiest  intellects, 
until  they  have  been  compelled  to  drink  out  of  the  trough 
of  bestiality  and  abomination!  I  warn  young  men  against 
poHtical  life,  unless  they  are  teetotalers  and  consecrated 
Christian  men. 

Again,  I  counsel  you  that,  when  you  go  to  the  ballot- 
box  at  the  city  or  the  State  or  the  national  elections,  you 
recognize  God^  and  appeal  to  1  dm  for  his  hlessing.  Tliere  is 
a  power  higher  than  the  ballot-box,  than  the  Guberna- 
torial chair,  than  the  Presidential  White  House.  It  is 
high  time  that  we  put  less  confidence  in  political  platforms 
and  more  confidence  in  God.  See  what  a  weak  thing  is 
liuman  foresight.  IIow  little  our  wise  men  seem  to  know  ! 
See  how,  every  autumn,  thousands  of  men  who  are  clam- 
bering up  for  higher  positions  are  turned  under.  God  up- 
sets them.  Every  man,  every  part}^  every  nation,  has  a 
mission  to  perform.     Failing  to  perform  it,  down  he  goes. 

God  said  to  the  House  of  Bourbon,  "Remodel  France, 
and  establish  equity."  House  of  Bourbon  would  not  do 
it.  Down  it  went.  God  said  to  the  House  of  Stuart, 
"Make  the  English  people  free.  God-fearing,  and  happy." 
House  of  Stuart  would  not  do  it.     Down  it  went.     God 


134  THE  CHRISTIAN  AT  THE  BALLOT-BOX. 

said  to  the  House  of  Hapsburg,  "  Rule  Austria  in  right, 
eousness,  and  open  the  prison-houses  until  the  captives 
shall  go  free."  House  of  Hapsburg  refuses  to  do  it.  Down 
it  goes.  God  says  to  the  political  parties  in  this  daj,  "By 
the  principles  of  Christianity  remodel,  govern,  educate, 
save  the  people."  Failing  to  do  that,  down  they  go,  bury- 
ing in  their  ruins  their  disciples  and  advocates.  God  can 
spare  all  the  political  intriguers  of  this  day,  and  can  raise 
up  another  generation  who  shall  do  justice  and  love  mercy. 
If  God  could  spare  Luther  before  the  Reformation  was 
done ;  and  if  he  could  spare  Washington  before  free  gov- 
ernment had  been  fully  tested;  and  if  he  could  spare  How- 
ard before  more  than  one  out  of  a  thousand  dungeons  had 
been  alleviated ;  and  if  he  could  spare  Robert  M'Cheyne 
just  as  Scotland  was  gathering  to  his  burning  utterances; 
and  if  he  could  spare  Thomas  Clarkson  while  yet  millions 
of  his  fellow -men  had  chains  rusting  to  the  bone  —  then 
he  can  spare  any  man,  and  he  can  spare  any  party.  That 
man  who,  through  cowardice  or  blind  idolatry  of  party,  for- 
sakes the  cause  of  righteousness,  goes  down,  and  the  armed 
battalions  of  God  march  over  him. 

O  Christian  men !  take  out  your  Bible  this  afternoon, 
and  in  the  light  of  that  word  make  up  your  mind  as  to 
what  is  your  duty  as  citizens.  Remember  that  the  highest 
kind  of  a  patriot  is  a  Christian  patriot.  Consecrate  your- 
selves first  to  God,  then  you  will  know  how  to  consecrate 
yourselves  to  your  country.  All  these  political  excite- 
ments will  be  gone.  Ballot-boxes  and  Gubernatorial 
chairs  and  continents  will  smoke  in  the  final  conflagration  ; 
but  those  who  love  God  and  do  their  best  shall  come 
to  lustrous  dominion  after  the  stars  have  ceased  their 
shining,  and  the  ocean  has  heaved  its  last  billow,  and  the 


THE  CIIltlSTIAN  AT  THE  BALLOT-BOX.  135 

closing  tliunder  of  the  judgment- day  shall  toll  at  the 
funeral  of  a  world !  Oh,  prepare  for  that  day !  Next 
Tuesday  questions  of  the  State  will  be  settled ;  but  there 
comes  a  day  when  the  questions  of  eternity  will  be  de- 
cided. You  may  vote  right,  and  may  get  the  victory  at 
the  ballot  -  box,  and  yet  suffer  eternal  defeat.  After  you 
have  cast  your  last  vote,  where  will  you  go  to?  In  this 
country  there  are  two  parties.  You  belong  to  the  one  or 
the  other  of  them.  Likewise  in  eternity  there  will  be  two 
parties,  and  only  two.  "  These  shall  go  away  into  ever- 
lasting punishment;  but  the  righteous  into  life  eternal." 
To  which  party  will  you  belong?  God  grant  that,  while 
you  look  after  the  welfare  of  the  land  in  which  God  has 
graciously  cast  your  lot,  you  may  not  forget  to  look  after 
your  soul — •  blood -bought,  judgment -bound,  immortal  I 
God  save  the  people  I 


136  THE  OVERFLOWING   CUP. 


THE  OYERFLOWING  CUR 

"My  cup  runneth  over." — Psalm  xxiii.,  5. 

EVERY  few  years  we  have  people  critical  of  tlie 
Thanksgiving  proclamation.  They  say,  "  We  have 
nothing  to  be  thankful  for.  Commerce  down ;  manufac- 
tures dull ;  commercial  prospects  blasted.  Better  have  a 
day  for  fasting  than  a  day  for  feasting."  Indeed,  have 
you  nothing  to  be  thankful  for?  Does  your  heart  beat? 
Do  your  eyes  see?  Do  your  ears  hear?  Did  you  break- 
fast this  morning?  Did  you  sleep  last  night?  Are  the 
glorious  heavens  above  your  head?  Is  the  solid  earth 
beneath  your  feet?  Have  you  a  Bible,  a  Christ,  a  prof- 
fered heaven  ?  Ay,  those  of  us  who  are  the  worst  off 
have  more  blessings  than  we  appreciate,  and  "our  cup 
runneth  over." 

There  is  a  table  spread  to-da}'-  across  the  top  of  the  two 
great  ranges  of  mountains  which  ridge  this  continent — a 
table  which  reaches  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  seas. 
It  is  the  Thanksgiving- table  of  the  nation.  They  come 
from  the  East  and  the  West  and  the  North  and  the  South, 
and  sit  at  it.  On  it  are  smoking  the  products  of  all  lands, 
birds  of  every  aviary,  cattle  from  every  pasture,  fish  from 
every  lake,  feathered  spoils  from  every  farm.  The  fruit- 
baskets  bend  down  under  the  products  plucked  fi'om  the 
peach-fields  of  New  Jerse}^,  the  apple-orchards  of  Western 
New  York,  the  orange-groves  of  Florida,  the  vineyards  of 
Ohio,  and  the  nuts  threshed  from  New  England  woods. 


THE  OVERFLOWING   CUP.  137 

The  bread  is  white  from  tlie  whcat-fiekls  of  Illinois  and 
Michigan,  the  banqueters  arc  adorned  with  California  gold, 
and  the  table  is  agleam  with  Nevada  silver,  and  the  feast 
is  warmed  with  the  fire-grates  heaped  up  with  Pennsyl- 
vania coal.  The  hall  is  spread  with  carpets  from  Lowell 
mills,  and  to-night  the  lights  will  flash  from  bronzed 
brackets  of  Philadelphia  manufacture.  The  fingers  of 
Massachusetts  girls  have  hung  the  einbi'oiderj  ;  the  music 
is  the  drumming  often  thousand  mills,  accompanied  by  the 
shout  of  children  let  loose  for  play,  and  the  gladness  of 
harvesters  driving  barnward  the  loads  of  sheaves,  and  the 
thanksgivings  of  the  nation  which  crowd  the  celestial  gates 
with  doxologies,  until  the  oldest  harper  of  heaven  can  not 
tell  where  the  terrestrial  song  ends  and  the  celestial  song 
begins. 

Welcome,  Thanksgiving-day  !  Whatever  we  may  think 
of  New  England  theolog}^,  we  all  like  New  England 
Thanksgiving- day.  What  meant  the  rush  last  night  to 
the  depots,  and  the  long  rail  trains  darting  their  lanterns 
along  the  tracks  of  the  Stonington  and  Providence,  Bos- 
ton and  Lowell,  New  Haven  and  Springfield,  Pl3n'nouth 
and  South  Braintree  railroads?  Ask  the  happy  group  in 
the  New  England  farm-house.  Ask  the  rustics  in  the 
cabin  among  the  Green  Mountains.  Ask  the  New  En- 
gland villagers  whose  song  of  praise  this  morning  comes 
over  the  Berkshire  hills.  Oh,  it  is  a  great  day  of  national 
festivity!  Clap  your  hands,  ye  people,  and  shout  aloud 
for  joy!  Through  tlie  organ -pipes  let  there  come  down 
the  thunder  of  a  nation's  rejoicing.  Blow  the  cornet! 
Wave  the  palm  branches!  Oh  that  men  would  praise  the 
Lord  for  his  goodness,  and  for  his  wonderful  works  to  the 
children  of  men  !     "  M}^  cup  runneth  over!" 


138  TEE  OVERFLOWING   CUP. 

I  propose  to  speak  to  you  this  morning  about  thanks- 
giving in  the  house,  thanksgiving  in  the  hovels  of  the 
poor,  thanksgiving  in  the  church,  thanksgiving  in  the  citj, 
thanksgiving  in  the  nation. 

Without  stopping  to  ring  your  door-bell,  I  come  into 
your  house,  and  I  look  around  and  see  what  God  has  been 
doing  for  you  during  the  past  year.  You  say,  "  Come  in.  I 
am  very  glad  to  see  you.  Sit  down  in  this  arm-chair  or  on 
this  sofa,  and  make  yourself  at  home."  No,  my  friends,  I  can 
not  stop.  I  just  want  to  look  around,  and  see  what  God  has 
been  doing  for  you  in  your  home.  "Oh,"  you  say,  "our 
house  is  not  so  large  now  as  the  one  we  used  to  have,"  I  an- 
swer. What  of  that?  It  is  a  great  deal  of  trouble  to  keep 
n  large  house  clean.  Besides  that,  a  small  house  is  cozy. 
Besides  that,  it  is  a  bad  thing  for  children  to  have  a  luxu- 
riant starting,  for  when  they  get  out  in  the  world  and  are 
married,  then  they  begin  to  talk  about  the  way  they  used 
to  have  it,  and  say,  "I  haven't  been  accustomed  to  such 
cramped -up  apartments."  Bless  God  if  you  have  a  real 
snug,  cozy  home.  But  I  step  into  your  parlor,  and  I  find 
there  the  evidences  of  refinement  and  culture  and  friend- 
ship. The  sofas  and  chairs  are  not  always  empty.  Sym- 
pathizing friends  sit  here  when  you  have  trouble.  Mirth- 
ful friends  sit  here  when  you  are  in  good  cheer.  This 
chandelier  will  flash  down  upon  social  gatherings,  and 
upon  Christmas-tree,  and  upon  merry-making.  These  keys 
have  often  been  thrummed  by  your  children,  and  there  is 
in  the  port-folio  on  the  music-rack  many  a  well-worn  song 
of  "Old  Oaken  Bucket"  and  "Old  Arm-chair;"  and 
while  your  grandfathers  entertained  their  guests  under 
rough-hewn  rafters  and  on  bare  floors,  j^ou  have  a  parlor 
in  which  are  the   evidences  of  painter's  pencil  and  en- 


THE  OVERFLOWING   CUP.  139 

graver's  knife  and  sculptor's  chisel,  and  I  stand  in  tlie 
midst  of  all  this  refinement  and  elegance  of  your  parlor 
and  demand  your  thanksgiving  unto  the  Lord. 

I  go  on  to  the  next  room,  and  step  into  your  nursery, 
and  I  am  greeted  with  the  shout  and  laughter  of  your  chil- 
dren. They  romp;  they  hide;  they  clap  their  hands.  I 
get  down  on  the  floor  and  play  with  them.  What  bright 
eyes!  What  merry  hearts  I  What  swift  feet !  God  bless 
them!  Their  little  troubles  dissolve  in  a  tear.  Their  lit- 
tle enmities  are  gone  after  a  minute's  pouting.  Busy  all 
day,  without  fatigues,  they  fall  asleep  chattering,  and  wake 
up  singing.  And  the  little  baby  has  its  realm,  waving  its 
sceptre  over  the  parental  heart,  and  you  look  down  in  its 
wondering  eyes  and  see  whole  worlds  of  promise  there, 
and  think  to  yourself,  "  Those  little  hands  will  smooth  my 
locks  when  they  get  gray,  and  those  little  feet  will  run  for 
me  when  I  am  sick,  and  those  eyes  will  weep  for  me  when 
I  am  gone."  Oh,  hush  him  to  sleep  with  a  holy  song! 
Let  him  know  the  name  of  Jesus  long  before  he  can  pro- 
nounce it.  Thank  God  to-day  that  upon  your  home  has 
come  the  brightness  of  childhood,  and  diop  a  tear  of  grief 
for  those  who  weep  over  a  despoiled  cradle,  and  toys  that 
never  will  be  caught  up  again  by  little  hands  now  still, 
alas,  forever ! 

I  step  from  this  room  into  the  dining-hall.  You  have 
not  invited  me  to  dine  with  you ;  but  I  come  right  in 
without  invitation,  and  sit  down  at  your  table  to-daj^".  I 
do  not  see  any  signs  of  starving  around  here,  although  you 
talk  so  much  about  hard  times.  Besides  that,  it  seems  to 
me  you  have  all  the  world  waiting  upon  3'ou.  The  cabi- 
net-makers have  prepared  with  great  toil  the  furniture; 
the  farmers  worried  themselves  almost  to  death  in  raising 


140  THE  OVEEFLOWmG   CUP. 

the  wheat  from  which  this  bread  was  made;  the  sailor 
was  lashed  to  the  mast  to  bring  you  those  foreign  luxu- 
ries; whole  herds  and  flocks,  at  different  times,  have  fallen 
under  the  knife  of  the  butcher  to  please  your  palate;  the 
miners  toiled  in  damp  and  darkness  to  get  the  coal  that 
warms  your  dinmg-room  to-day.  Summer  sun  and  driv- 
ing snow  and  howling  tempest  have  sent  their  contribu- 
tions to  your  table  to-day.  None  of  3'our  children  are 
crying  for  bread  in  vain.  The  barrel  of  meal  has  not 
wasted ;  the  cruse  of  oil  has  not  failed.  Bread  enough 
and  to  spare,  while  many  have  perished  with  hunger.  Oh, 
do  not,  to-day,  draw  your  knife  across  the  sharpening  steel 
until  you  have  sent  up  one  word  of  thanksgiving  to  the 
Lord  who  has  given  you  all  these  mercies !  And  if  you 
are  not  accustomed  to  asking  a  blessing  at  the  table,  I 
think  this  day  will  be  a  good  one  in  which  to  begin,  and 
if  you  can  not  think  of  any  thing  else  to  say,  then  take  the 
words  of  my  text,  "  Mj'-  cup  runneth  over!" 

I  step  out  from  the  dining-hall  into  3'our  librarj'-,  and 
see  your  table  covered  with  books  and  magazines  and 
newspapers  fresh  from  the  publishing  houses.  It  seems 
to  me  really  as  if  the  historians,  and  the  fabulists,  and  the 
pamphleteers,  and  the  philosophers  of  the  world  were 
waiting  your  bidding.  Here,  on  this  historic  shelf  of  your 
library,  jon  have  Bancroft  and  Prescott  and  Macaulay  to 
tell  you  the  rude  story  of  early  America,  or  desci'ibe  the 
wonders  of  Mexican  scenery,  or  call  back  the  eloquence 
of  the  old  Parliaments  that  death  long  asfo  dissolved  with 
more  than  the  imperiousness  of  Cromwell.  And  here  is 
your  poetic  shelf,  on  which  stand  Dr.  Young  with  his 
weeping  harp,  and  Walter  Scott  sounding  the  Highland 
bagpipe,    and    Longfellow    ringing    out   the    war-whoop 


THE  OVERFLOWING   CUP.  1-il 

through  "Hiawatha,"  and  William  Cullen  Bryant  min- 
gling the  moan  of  the  wild  woods  with  the  call  of  the 
brown  thresher.  And  here  is  the  shelf  that  Dickens  has 
all  to  himself,  from  "Oliver  Twist"  to  "Edwin  Drood," 
avenging  the  world's  sorrows,  weeping  the  world's  sins, 
exposing  the  world's  hypocrisies,  winning  the  world's  ap- 
plause. What  a  pity  that,  by  high  living,  he  went  away 
so  soon  !  Moan  out  the  grief,  0  bells  of  Westminster. 
Thank  God  for  books — plenty  of  them — books  to  make 
you  study,  books  to  waft  you  into  reverie,  books  to  make 
you  weep,  books  to  make  you  laugh,  books  in  cloth,  books 
in  morocco,  in  satin,  in  gold  ;  books  of  travel,  of  anecdote, 
of  memoir,  of  legend;  books  scrolled  and  starred  and 
wreathed  and  columned;  books  about  insects,  about  birds, 
about  shells,  about  every  thing;  books  for  the  young, 
books  for  the  old.  "Oh,"  says  some  one,  "I  have  not  all 
these  luxuries;  I  have  not  all  these  comforts  of  the  parlor, 
of  the  nursery,  of  the  dining-hall,  of  the  library."  But,  my 
brother,  most  certainly  you  know  something  of  the  height 
and  depth  and  length  and  breadth  of  that  sweet,  tender, 
joyous,  triumphant  word,  home!  Do  not  look  at  it  as  a 
place  merely  to  stay  in,  as  the  lion  looks  at  his  lair,  or  the 
fox  his  burrow,  or  the  eagle  his  eyrie.  Do  not  call  it  your 
apartments,  or  your  lodgings,  or  your  domicile,  but  —  by 
all  the  memory  of  those  who  are  gone;  by  the  memory 
of  the  old  people,  whether  here  or  there;  for  the  sake  of 
childhood;  for  the  sake  of  all  that  is  good,  and  pure,  and 
true,  and  blessed — call  it  home.  Gather  your  families  to- 
gether to-day  !  If  you  have  a  musical  instrument,  open 
it;  if  you  have  not,  open  your  heart — the  best  of  all  mu- 
sical instruments — and  while  the  Lord  listens,  and  the  mem- 
ory of  the  past  rushes  through  your  soul,  "  Oh,  give  thanks 


Ii2  THE  OVERFLOWING   CUP. 

unto  the  Lord;  for  he  is  good;  for  his  mercy  endr.ret.li 
forever;"  and  let  each  one  clap  his  hands,  and  say  for  him- 
self, "  My  cup  runneth  over  !" 

I  pass  on  now  to  look  at  Thanksgiving  in  the  hovels 
of  the  poor.  No  banquet  smoking  on  their  table.  It  is  a 
sad  thing  to  see  a  poor  man,  the  evening  before  Thanks- 
giving, looking  into  a  full  grocery-window,  while  he  thinks 
of  his  destitute  home.  It  is  hard  to  be  hungry  in  a  world 
with  ripe  orchards  and  luxuriant  harvests  and  herds  of 
cattle  driven  to  the  slaughtering!  It  is  hard  to  be  cold 
in  a  world  where  the  forests  are  waiting  for  the  axe-man 
and  the  mines  are  waiting  for  the  miners.  It  is  a  hard 
thing  to  be  unclad  in  a  world  where  there  are  so  many 
swift  cylinders  in  motion,  so  many  manufactories  of  goods, 
and  where  the  fox,  and  the  beaver,  and  the  Arctic  bear, 
and  the  Siberian  squirrel  are  dying  in  order  that  men  may 
have  their  furs.  To-day  do  not  stuff  yourself  to  surfeiting 
without  thinking  of  those  who  are  gaunt  with  hunger ;  do 
not  put  your  feet  up  by  the  warm  register  without  think- 
ing, at  least  once,  of  those  whose  last  scuttle  of  coal  is  gone. 
When,  to-night,  you  turn  on  the  gas  full  head,  and  it  glit- 
ters along  the  wall  in  bubbles  of  fire,  do  not  forget  to  think 
of  those  whose  last  candle  has  hissed  in  the  socket.  If 
you  have  nothing  better  than  an  old  jacket,  or  a  worn-out 
pair  of  shoes,  or  a  coat  that  has  been  patched  until  it  has 
become  "  a  coat  of  many  colors,"  give  something  this  day 
to  the  poor.  There  are  two  things  that  I  should  like  to 
have  my  Lord  Jesus  Christ  say  to  me  in  the  last  day: 
"I  was  hungry,  and  ye  fed  me,"  "I  was  naked,  and  ye 
clothed  me."     God  help  the  poor! 

But  I  pass  on  now,  and  look  at  Thanksgiving  in  the 
church.     Last  Tliankso-iving  we  were  churchlcss.     We  had 


THE  OVERFLOWING   CUP.  143 

a  wall  partly  up,  a  pile  of  bricks,  a  heap  of  lumber.  That 
was  about  our  position.  It  was  a  doleful  day  to  me.  I 
wandered  about  with  my  coat-collar  up,  and  rubbing  my 
frost-bitten  right  ear,  and  there  was  not,  in  all  the  day,  any 
thing  that  looked  like  Thanksgiving  save  the  dinner,  and 
that  was  not  so  good  as  usual.  We  felt  like  the  Israelites 
in  captivit}^,  and  would,  like  them,  have  hung  our  harps 
on  the  willows,  but  for  the  reason  our  organ  was  burned 
up,  and  we  had  no  harp,  and  no  willows  to  bang  it  on. 
But  where  are  we  to-day?  Is  this  our  roof?  Are  these 
our  altars?  Is  this  our  spiritual  home?  How  goodly  are 
thy  tents,  0  Jacob!  "Walk  about  Zion,  and  go  round 
about  her  :  tell  the  towers  thereof  Mark  ye  well  her  bul- 
warks, consider  her  palaces;  that  ye  may  tell  it  to  the  gen- 
eration following.  For  this  God  is  our  God  for  ever  and 
ever ;  he  will  be  our  guide  even  unto  death."  With  organ, 
with  cornet,  with  multitudinous  shout  of  great  congrega- 
tion, express  this  day  your  praise  to  God,  "Our  cup  run- 
neth over."  But  better  than  all  material  structure  is  the 
spiritual  blessing  that  descended,  and  the  multitude  of  souls 
who,  during  these  nine  months,  have  stood  up  at  this  altar, 
connecting  themselves  with  our  membership — the  blessing 
still  hovering — and  at  every  service  immortal  souls  saved. 
"  Bless  the  Lord,  0  my  soul !"  I  know  there  are  those 
who  think  the  Church  is  a  museum  of  antediluvian  fossils. 
They  think  it  did  very  well  once,  but  it  is  behind  the  times. 
Tliat  is  not  your  opinion.  You  love,  first,  your  home,  and 
next,  your  church.  O  ye  descendants  of  the  men  who  were 
hounded  amidst  the  Highlands  of  Scotland,  and  who  fell 
at  Bothwcll  Bridge  !  0  ye  sons  and  daughters  of  the  men 
who  came  across  wintry  seas  to  build  their  log  churches  in 
the  American  wilderness!   0  ve  sons  and  daughters  of 


144  THE  OVERFLOWING   CUR 

tliose  who  stood  in  the  awful  siege  of  Leyden,  and  shouted 
the  martyr's  triumph  in  the  horrors  of  the  Brussels  market- 
place I  O  ye  descendants  of  the  men  whose  garments  were 
dyed  in  the  wine-press  of  Saint  Bartholomew  Massacre! 
ye  sons  and  daughters  of  the  fire!  what  do  you  think,  to- 
day, of  a  quiet  church,  and  a  free  pulpit,  and  a  Gospel 
winged  with  mercy  and  salvation?  What  imperial  edict 
forbids  our  convocation  ?  What  sword  thirsts  for  our 
blood?  What  fires  are  kindled  for  our  torture?  None. 
Defended  by  the  law,  invited  by  the  Gospel,  baptized  by 
the  Spirit,  we  are  here  to-day  free  men  of  the  State,  free 
men  of  God.  Glorious  Church  !  "  Twelve  wells  of  water, 
and  three-score-and-ten  palm-trees."  "My  cup  runneth 
over."  Oh,  this  day  bring  the  richest  Thanksgiving  gar- 
land, and  put  it  upon  the  brow  of  Him  who  bought  the 
Church,  died  for  your  sins,  and  prepared  for  you  a  grand 
and  glorious  inheritance.  Thanks  be  unto  God  for  the 
unspeakable  gift  of  a  Saviour. 

But  I  pass  on  and  consider  Thanksgiving  in  the  city.  It 
is  five  years  since  I  came  to  live  in  this  city.  I  have  seen 
many  cities  on  both  sides  the  sea,  but  I  have  never  seen 
any  I  like  quite  so  well  as  this.  What  quiet  Sabbaths ! 
What  large  and  beautiful  churches!  What  costly  and 
magnificent  Mercantile  Library!  What  a  glory  our  Acad- 
emy of  Music!  What  institutions  of  learning — Packer, 
the  Polytechnic,  the  Adelphi,  and  our  glorious  common 
schools  with  the  Bible  in  them !  Our  long  lines  of  streets, 
beautifully  shaded.  Our  Park,  with  its  arborescent  drives, 
and  its  affluence  of  flowers,  and  its  sculptured  bridges,  and 
its  exquisite  lake.  Prospered  city.  Our  Mayor  honorable. 
Our  judges  just.  Our  police  efficient.  Beautiful  Brook- 
lyn.    Blessed  forever  be  her  great  population !     When  we 


THE  OVERFLOWING   CUR  145 

get  the  bridge  done,  we  will  go  over  and  make  New  York 
just  like  it.  But,  after  all,  I  think  New  York  is  as  moral 
a  citj  as  there  is  under  the  sun,  considering  the  number  of 
its  population.  We  are  one  city,  after  all,  on  both  sides 
of  the  East  Eiver.  There  are  a  great  many  people  who 
think  that  the  worst  city  on  earth  is  the  combined  city  of 
New  York  and  Brooklyn  ;  and  I  do  not  know  but  that  some 
people,  from  the  exaggeration  in  regard  to  it,  may  land  at 
the  foot  of  Cortlandt  Street,  and  rush  up  to  the  Hudson 
Kiver  Kailroad  Depot,  telling  the  hackman  all  the  way  to 
whip  up  the  horses,  lest  some  scourge  come  upon  them  be- 
fore they  get  through  the  town.  I  do  not  know  but  that 
some  countrymen  coming  to  our  city,  from  the  stories  that 
have  been  told  about  us,  may  keep  looking  over  both  shoul- 
ders lest  they  be  garroted  somewhere  between  Fulton  Ferry 
and  the  City  Hall.  I  think  the  politicians  are  responsible 
for  that  exaggerated  statement  of  the  way  things  are  in 
this  city.  I  really  think  it  is  a  grand  city,  a  beautiful  city, 
to  live  in.  Under  different  administrations  of  politics  it  is. 
We  have  tried  all  kinds — the  one,  perhaps,  as  good  as  the 
other;  the  chief  difference  between  the  two  parties,  I  have 
found  out,  being  that  that  one  steals  most  which  has  the 
longest  opportunity  to  steal,  the  change  of  administration 
often  being  the  relief  which  a  man  gets  when  he  changes 
from  rheumatism  to  neuralgia  I  Still,  notwithstanding  all 
these  things,  I  think  this  a  fjiir  city  to  live  in;  I  do  not 
think  there  is  a  better  city  under  the  sun.  Thank  God 
you  live  here,  and  that  you  can  to-day  boast,  as  Itiul  did, 
that  you  are  the  inhabitant  of  no  mean  city. 

I  pass  on  once  more  to  look  at  Thanksgiving  in  the  na- 
tion. Peace  all  through  the  land.  The  Indians  quiet  in 
the  plains.    No  foreign  guns  coming  up  through  the  "  Nar- 

7 


146  THE  OVERFLOWING   CUP. 

rows."  Insurrection  in  New  Orleans  conquered  by  a  rev- 
olulion  at  tbe  ballot-box.  The  South  at  last  satisfied  that 
the  wrongs  of  the  last  six  years  will  be  righted.  No  Amer- 
ican slavery  to  fight  about.  By  a  revolution  in  national 
politics,  both  political  parties  put  upon  their  good  behav- 
ior ;  that  party  which  does  the  most  for  the  people  in  the 
next  year  and  a  half  winning  the  Presidential  chair  and  the 
national  supremacy.  In  our  own  State  and  in  our  own 
time  we  have  had  a  wonderful  thing  occur  in  this  very 
month,  when  the  question  was  who  should  be  Governor,  as 
between  two  men,  both  of  them  honorable  and  Christian 
men — a  good  man  going  out  and  a  good  man  coming  in. 
John  A.  Dix  followed  by  Samuel  J.  Tilden.  So  also  with 
our  financial  prospects,  they  are  all  brightening. 

We  have  all  been  compelled  to  economize ;  and  you 
well  know  that  economy  is  the  primordial  element  in  na- 
tional prosperity.  If  a  man  should  make  ten  thousand 
dollars  a  year  and  spend  eleven  thousand  dollars,  he  is  not 
so  well  off  as  the  man  who  makes  one  thousand  dollars  a 
year  and  spends  nine  hundred  dollars.  That  process  of 
economy  going  on  all  through  the  land  has  been  a  healthy 
process,  and  we  shall  feel  the  good  results  of  it  after  a 
while.  Superfluous  railroads  have  ceased  building;  com- 
mercial balloons  have  lost  their  gas.  We  have  almost  a 
certain  prospect  of  a  speedy  resumption  of  specie  payments; 
and  the  day  will  soon  come  when  a  dollar  will  mean  a 
dollar,  and  not  something  else.  The  ragged  currency  will 
be  ended.  We  have  wandered  about,  supposing  we  had 
our  pockets  full  of  money,  when  they  turned  out  to  be  only 
the  cartes-de-visite  of  some  celebrated  member  of  the  Cab- 
inet;  Mr.  Spinner,  in  awful  chirography  at  the  bottom  of 
the  bill,  certifying  that  it  was  a  good  picture  of  Hugh 
M'Culloch  or  Mr.  Boutwell. 


TUE  OVERFLOWINO   CTP.  147 

Now,  all  these  things  are  brightening  prospects.  "  Oh," 
say  some,  "  we  never  can  get  out  of  this  financial  depres- 
sion." Wh}',  my  brethren,  men  of  business,  we  have  had 
dark  days  before  this.  In  1857  there  were  four  thou- 
sand two  hundred  and  fifty-seven  failures,  to  the  amount 
of  two  hundred  and  sixty-five  million  eight  hundred  and 
eighteen  thousand  doHars.  People  said,  "  We'll  never  get 
out  of  it."  Yet  in  two  years  there  was  not  a  vestige  left 
of  that  great  commercial  disaster.  The  wheels  flew  and 
the  feet  of  American  enterprise  tramped  on,  and  we  soon 
got  over  it.  Then  came  the  dark  days  of  1861,  when  there 
were  five  thousand  nine  hundred  and  thirty-five  business 
failures,  amounting  to  one  hundred  and  seventy-eight  mill- 
ion six  hundred  and  thirty -two  thousand  one  hundred 
and  seventy  dollars.  Then  people  threw  up  their  hands, 
and  said,  "  We  shall  never  get  over  this."  And  yet  the 
largest  fortunes  of  the  country  have  been  made  since  then, 
and  our  national  prosperity  has  increased  beyond  the  ca- 
pacity of  any  arithmetic  to  state  it.  If  God  brought  us  out 
of  the  trouble  of  1857  and  out  of  the  misfortunes  of  1861, 
is  he  not  strong^  enouirh  to  bring  lis  out  of  the  troubles  of 
1874?  lie  will.  He  will.  I  believe  the  prosperities  that 
are  yet  to  come  will  soon  put  out  of  sight  all  our  past  na- 
tional accumulations.  Our  national  debt  is  rapidly  dwin- 
dling. Added  to  all,  the  ftict  that  we  have  one  hundred 
and  sixty-two  thousand  square  miles  of  coal,  and  another 
one  hundred  and  sixty-two  thousand  square  miles  of  iron, 
it  seems  to  me  that  the  metals  of  the  earth  are  to-da}'",  as 
with  the  golden  lips  of  California  and  the  silver  tongue  of 
Nevada,  promising  the  flict  that  there  shall  be  no  end  to 
our  national  resources. 

But  look  at  the  harvests.     I  do  not  suppose  that  foi? 


148  THE  OVERFLOWING   CUP. 

more  than  three  or  four  times  within  the  memor}^  of  any- 
body here  there  have  been  such  harvests  as  we  have  had 
this  year.  The  grain -fields  have  passed  their  harvests 
above  the  veto  of  drought  and  deluge.  The  freight  cars 
are  not  large  enough  to  bring  down  the  grain  to  the  sea- 
board. The  canal -boats  are  crowded  with  bread-stuffs. 
Hark  to  the  rushing  of  the  wheat  through  the  great  Chi- 
cago corn  "  elevators."  Hark  to  the  rolling  of  the  hogs- 
heads of  the  Cincinnati  pork-packers!  Enough  to  eat,  and 
at  cheap  prices.  Enough  to  wear,  and  of  home  manuflict- 
ure.  If  some  have  and  some  have  not,  then  may  God  help 
those  who  have  to  hand  over  something  to  those  who  have 
not!  Clear  the  track  for  the  rail  trains  that  come  down, 
bringing  the  wheat,  and  the  barley,  and  the  oats,  and  the 
bops,  and  the  lumber,  and  the  leather,  and  every  thing  for 
man  and  every  thing  for  beast. 

I  can  not,  I  dare  not,  detain  you  any  longer  from  the 
home  group.  The  housekeepers  will  be  angry  with  me  if 
I  keep  3'OU  until  the  viands  are  cold.  Set  the  chairs  to  the 
table  —  the  easy-chairs  for  grandfather  and  grandmother, 
if  they  be  still  alive;  the  high  chair  for  the  youngest  and 
the  least.  Then  piit  out  your  hand  to  take  the  full  cup  of 
thanksgiving;  bring  it  toward  your  lips,  your  hands  trem- 
bling with  emotion ;  and  if  the  chalice  shall  spill  on  the 
cloth,  do  not  be  chagrined,  but  look  up  thankfully  to 
heaven,  and  say,  "My  cup  runneth  over!" 


THE  WRECK  OF  THE  ''SCHILLER:'  X49 


THE  WKECK  OF  THE  "SCHILLER." 

"They  ran  the  ship  aground;  and  the  forepart  stuck  fust,  and  remained 
unmovablc,  hut  the  hinder  i)art  was  broken  with  the  violence  of  the  waves." 
— Acts  xxvii.,  41. 

CAUGHT  in  a  typhoon!  Before  yet  the  chronome- 
ter was  invented,  a  vessel  is  cracking  to  pieces  on  the 
coast  of  a  Mediterranean  island.  The  cargo  of  corn  is 
spoiled,  and,  worse  than  that,  two  hundred  and  seventy-six 
passengers  are  beside  themselves  with  terror.  At  the  first 
bump  of  the  ship,  every  thing  was  in  consternation.  She 
went  on,  bow  first,  and  the  waves  cried,  "  Come,  let  us  tear 
this  old  hulk  to  pieces!"  The  sea  beat  against  the  stern, 
and  dashed  the  spray  clear  over  the  deck,  crowded  with  af- 
frighted passengers.  Rudder,  yards,  mast,  bulwark,  knocked 
away.  Every  thing  going  to  demolition.  "They  ran  the 
ship  aground ;  and  the  forepart  stuck  fast,  and  remained 
unmovable,  but  the  hinder  part  was  broken  with  the  vio- 
lence of  the  waves." 

There  are  some  points  of  striking  analogy  between  that 
wreck  and  the  one  which  stunned  our  ears  a  few  days  ago. 
Both  vessels  carried  freight  and  passengers.  Both  were 
crowded  with  people — the  one  with  two  hundred  and  sev- 
enty-six on  board,  the  other  with  three  hundred  and  eighty- 
five  on  board.  Both  were  caught  in  the  grip  of  a  tempest. 
From  both  the  sailors  tried  to  escape  in  small  boats,  giving 
no  chance  to  the  passengers.  Both  lost  their  reckoning. 
Both  went  aground  in  the  night. 


150  THE  WRECK  OF  THE  '' SCHILLEEy 

The  Schiller  started  from  our  port  on  the  28th  of  April, 
bound  for  Plymouth,  England,  and  Hamburg,  Germany. 
It  was  the  popular  season  for  transatlantic  voyage,  and  the 
people  went  on  the  ship:  invalids  in  search  of  health,  pleas- 
urists  expecting  merriment  in  foreign  capitals,  merchants 
on  commercial  errand,  artists  bound  for  the  picture-galler- 
ies of  Dresden  and  Florence,  adopted  citizens  going  back 
to  visit  the  land  of  their  nativity  and  the  graves  of  their  fa- 
thers. They  had  gone  three  thousand  miles  of  voyage  suc- 
cessfully, and  expected  on  the  morrow  to  wake  up  in  the 
calm  English  harbor.  Some  of  them  were  sleeping,  and 
dreaming  of  home,  of  wife,  of  child,  and  others  of  mount- 
ains and  cities  beyond  the  sea.  A  dense  mist  comes  upon 
the  ocean.  The  storm  hallooes  amidst  the  rigging.  Yet  all 
seems  safe.  Two  men  on  the  lookout.  Two  men  at  the 
wheel.  Two  men  pacing  the  captain's  bridge.  Yet  all  the 
time  making  for  the  rocks.  Oh,  stop  her  before  she  strikes ! 
One  turn  of  the  wheel  will  save  the  ship.  The  howl  of  the 
storm  drowns  the  tolling  of  the  fog-bell  in  Bishop  Eock 
Light-house.  Still  on  and  on,  until,  without  a  moment  in 
which  to  give  warning,  or  wake  up  the  passengers  from 
their  berths,  or  swing  the  small  boats  from  their  davits,  that 
vessel  of  three  thousand  six  hundred  tons  burden  strikes 
the  rock,  once,  twice,  three  times,  four  times,  and  goes  down  I 
Between  the  first  plunge  and  the  last  the  rockets  are  flung, 
and  the  guns  are  sounded,  and  a  few  passengers  clamber  up 
in  the  rigging ;  but  there  is  no  safe  retreat  there,  for  soon 
the  mast,  with  its  cluster  of  precious  human  life  tangled  in 
the  cordage,  begins  to  bend  and  reel  in  the  gale,  and  then 
cracks,  and  with  awful  plunge  dashes  into  the  sea.  Mean- 
while the  captain  makes  a  brave  attempt  with  loaded  and 
firing  pistol  to  keep  the  life-boats  for  the  passengers.     He 


THE   WliECK   OF  THE  ''HCUILLERy  151 

gathers  some  of  them  up  on  Lis  bridge;  but,  ufier  having 
done  all  he  could  for  the  saving  of  the  people  on  the  ship, 
he  wraps  himself  in  a  winding-sheet  of  surf,  and  lies  down 
beside  them  in  that  great  democracy  of  sepulture.  Beau- 
tiful women  and  swarthy  men  and  sweet  children,  side  by 
side,  are  dead.  There  she  lies,  the  Schiller,  under  a  mound 
of  blue  seas,  the  jutting  reef  the  tombstone,  buried  in  the 
place  where  lie  the  skeletons  of  the  Thames  steamer,  and 
the  Daro,  and  the  English  Admiral,  waiting  for  the  day 
when  the  sea  shall  give  up  its  dead.  Let  the  waves  tramp 
up  the  sad  beach  in  solemn  procession,  and  two  continents 
uncover  the  brow  over  this  burial  of  the  Schiller  with  three 
hundred  and  forty -two  passengers,  without  any  warning 
gone  out  to  meet  their  God. 

Let  us  learn,  first,  from  this  disaster  what  a  sad  thing  it  is 
for  people  to  lose  their  reckoning.  Captain  Thomas,  through 
the  report  from  the  log-book,  which  recorded  the  distances 
and  courses  sailed,  judged  that  he  was  at  least  two  miles  off 
from  the  Scilly  rocks;  but  he  did  not  really  know  where 
he  was.  He  mistook,  and  that  mistake  flung  hundreds  of 
souls  into  the  eternal  world,  and  the  whole  civilized  world 
into  mourning.  So  there  are  those  here  to-day  who  have 
lost  their  reckoning.  They  know  not  where  they  are. 
They  say,  "  So  many  miles  have  I  voyaged  since  I  was 
launched  on  the  ocean  of  life,  and  so  many  miles  more  will 
I  voyage  before  I  get  to  the  coast  of  eternity."  Part  of 
their  calculation  is  right,  and  part  of  their  calculation  is 
wrong,  and  they  have  lost  their  reckoning.  They  know 
not  how  they  stand  toward  God  or  their  Bible,  or  their  duty 
or  heaven.  They  are  sailing  on  thoughtlessly,  when  they 
may  be  within  two  minutes  of  the  reef.  Alas  that  men 
should  make  a  mistake  for  eternity!  now  running  on  one 


152  THE  WRECK  OF  THE  ''SCHILLER:' 

rook,  now  running  on  tbe  other  rock;  and,  with  the  quad- 
rant of  God's  Word  in  their  hand,  by  which  they  might 
have  calculated  the  latitude,  in  an  evil  hour,  their  watch- 
fulness asleep  in  the  cabin,  like  the  corn  ship  of  the  text, 
or  the  Schiller  of  last  week,  going  aground,  one  shivering 
horror.  Oh,  slow  your  engines !  Throw  out  your  bower 
anchor!  Stop  stock-still  until  you  find  out  where  you  are 
— near  what  reef,  by  what  coast,  on  the  verge  of  what  ship- 
wreck! There  is  only  one  channel  leading  into  the  celes- 
tial harbor,  and  that  is  not  a  wide  channel.  "Narrow  is 
the  way  which  leadeth  unto  life,  and  few  there  be  that  find 
it."  God  forbid  that  any  one  of  us  should  lose  our  reck- 
oning. 

Again,  I  see  in  this  disaster  wliai  a  dense  fog  can  do. 
This  calamity  was  only  half  a  mile  from  Bishop  Rock  Light- 
house. It  is  a  granite  structure,  one  hundred  and  forty- 
seven  feet  high,  and  has  one  of  the  best  and  brightest  diop- 
tric lights,  a  multiplication  of  refracted  rays.  When  the 
sun  sets,  the  keeper  strikes  that  light,  and  it  blazes  all 
through  the  darkness,  and  in  ordinary  weather  throws  out 
its  glow  fourteen  miles  upon  the  sea.  "  Well,"  you  say, 
"there  might  have  been  some  excuse  for  a  vessel  going  on 
those  rocks  in  Queen  Anne's  time,  as  the  vessels  did  un- 
der the  brave  Sir  Cloudsley  Shovel,  when  nine  ships  of  the 
line  broke  to  pieces,  and  two  thousand  soldiers  perished, 
for  then  there  were  no  lights  on  the  rock.  But  how  was 
it  possible,"  says  one  not  conversant  with  all  the  circum- 
stances, "that  a  steamer  should  have  been  ruined  there 
within  half  a  mile  of  Bishop  Rock  Light-house?"  Oh,  there 
was  a  fog  on  the  sea.  Captain  Thomas,  and  First-officer 
Killers,  and  Second-officer  Pollman  could  not  see  a  quarter 
of  the  length  of  that  steamer,  and  if  there  had  been  fifty 


THE  WRECK  OF  THE  '' iSCHILLEIi:'  153 

light -houses  on  the  rock  they  would  not  have  done  any- 
good. 

Here  I  get  a  hint  of  the  way  men  lose  their  souls,  driv- 
ing into  ruin ;  for  there  are  scores  of  men  in  this  daj^,  and 
institutions,  whose  whole  business  seems  to  be  to  create  a 
great  spiritual  fog.  Men  and  women  do  not  go  on  to  death 
a- purpose;  it  is  because  they  are  cheated,  they  are  de- 
ceived, they  are  mystified,  they  are  befogged.  We  have  in 
this  day  the  Ilerbert  Spencer  fog  about  life,  which,  he  says, 
is  "the  combination  of  heterogeneous  changes,  both  simul- 
taneous and  successive,  in  correspondences  with  external 
co-existences  and  sequences !"  We  have  the  Huxley  fog 
about  protoplasm.  We  have  the  Darwinian  fog  about  the 
anthropomorphous  origin  of  our  race,  and  our  dear  old 
grandfathers,  the  gorilla  and  the  chimpanzee.  The  fog  of 
Materialism,  the  fog  of  Pantheism,  the  fog  of  Rationalism, 
the  fog  that  Strauss  and  Shenkel  and  Eenan  have  thrown 
all  around  the  head  of  Christ.  Any  thing  but  believe  that 
God,  by  his  power,  made  the  worlds,  and  that  the  Bible  is 
plenarily  inspired,  and  that  Christ  is  the  omnipotent  Son 
of  God  come  to  save  sinners.  There  is  one  funeral  that 
these  wiseacres  would  like  to  attend,  and  be  both  pall-bear- 
ers and  grave-diggers,  and  that  is  the  decease  and  burial  of 
the  Lord  God  Almighty.  They  do  not  think  the  universe 
is  large  enough  for  Him  and  them,  and  so  they  are  trying 
to  crowd  Him  back,  and  crowd  Him  off  the  precipices  of  the 
universe,  and,  in  trying  to  do  so,  they  create  a  great  spirit- 
ual fog,  and  the  hundreds  who  went  down  on  the  Schiller 
v,'ere  as  nothing  compared  with  the  thousands  and  the  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  who,  in  this  great  philosophical  vapor- 
ing, have  been  wrecked  suddenly  and  forever.  One  hour 
after  the  vessel  spoken  of  struck  in  the  English  Channel. 

7* 


151  THE  WRECK   OF  THE  '' SCHILLER^ 

the  fog  lifted,  and  the  survivors  saw  Bishop  Rock  Light- 
house ;  and  I  would  that  to-day  a  fresh  gale  fi-oni  heaven 
might  sweep  earth  and  sky  of  all  philosophical  obscura- 
tions, and  that  the  dioptric  light  of  God's  Word  might  flash 
its  illumination  across  all  kingdoms.  Oh,  come  out  of  the 
speculative  fog,  man !  Take  the  Bible  for  all  you  ought 
to  know  and  can  know.  Come  out  of  the  darkness,  and 
sit  in  the  sunlight  of  our  glorious  Christianity.  Stop  your 
religious  guessing.  When  in  this  day  I  see  people  all 
around  me  drenched  and  soaked  and  floundering  in  the 
dense  mist  of  modern  skepticism,  I  am  put  more  in  love 
than  ever  before  with  the  comfortable  religion  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.  Oh  that  these  wiseacres  would  come  and  sit 
down  for  half  an  hour,  and  study  and  absorb  the  three  first 
questions  and  answers  of  Brown's  "  Shorter  Catechism," 
which  some  of  us  learned  at  four  years  of  age!— "Who 
made  you?  God.  Who  redeemed  you?  Christ.  Who 
sanctified  you  ?  The  Holy  Ghost."  May  the  Sun  of  right- 
eousness scatter  the  fog. 

Again,  in  the  recent  disaster  I  find  an  illustration  of 
lohat  is  vicarious  sacrifice.  Captain  Thomas  might  have  got 
off  to  the  land  safely,  in  all  probability.  There  were  two 
small  boats  that  reached  the  shore.  Why  did  he  not  take 
one  of  them  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  disaster?  Why 
did  he  not  take  some  buoyant  part  of  the  ship  and  float  to 
a  place  of  safety  ?  He  might  have  said,  "  No  man  can  re- 
imburse me  for  the  loss  of  my  life.  This  is  a  time  when 
every  man  must  look  out  for  himself"  No.  He  staid 
there  amidst  the  hurricane,  pistol  in  hand,  determined  that 
the  women  and  the  children  should  get  into  those  life- 
boats, and  no  one  else.  And  I  hear  the  crack,  crack,  of 
the  fire-arms,  and  I  hear  him  crying  out,  "Stand  back 


TUE  WRECK  OF  TUE  ''SCHILLER:'  155 

now,  and  let  the  passengers  be  saved!  Stand  back!" 
And  then  I  see  him  gathering  some  of  the  sufferers  on  his 
bridge,  and  then  I  see  him  going  down  for  still  another 
errand  in  their  behalf,  when  a  wild  surge  sweeps  him  off 
'uto  the  merciless  Atlantic.  All  tlie  survivors  agree  in 
stating  that  a  brave  man  pci'ished  that  night.  Come,  ye 
who  do  not  know  what  the  pulpits  mean  when  they  talk 
about  vicai'ious  sacrifice.  It  means  one  dying  for  others. 
It  means  Captain  Thomas  dying  for  the  survivors  of  the 
Schiller.  It  means  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  dying  for  you 
and  me.  Chi-ist  knew  that  we  must  go  down  without  His 
interposition.  lie  might  have  gone  safel}'  back  to  heaven, 
saying,  "  I  have  done  enough  for  that  race.  I  can  not  af- 
ford to  die  on  that  wretched  cross;"  and  the  angels  of  God 
would  have  taken  him  b}^  the  arms  and  lifted  him  into  the 
sky.  But  no.  There  he  stands  in  the  midnight  hurricane 
of  God's  wrath  against  sin,  looking  off  upon  our  founder- 
ing souls,  and  he  launches  the  life-boat,  and  tells  us  to  be 
off  for  the  shore,  while  he  expires.  Christ  sinking,  that 
we  might  rise  ;  Christ  dying,  that  we  might  live.  For  the 
first  ten  million  years  heaven  will  not  get  through  talking 
about  it.  And  yet — amazing  fact! — we  will  not  get  into 
the  life-boat,  though  it  has  come  ;  and  we  see  the  oars  pull- 
ing away,  taking  from  us  our  last  chance,  and  we  will  not 
leap  into  it.  The  tears  and  the  sufferings  and  the  dying 
anguish  of  the  Son  of  God,  so  far  as  we  are  concerned,  a 
dead  failure  ;  and,  instead  of  pleading  for  us  at  the  last, 
because  of  our  outrage  thereof,  demanding  our  complete 
and  eternal  overthrow  I  It  is  marvelous  that  Jesus  died. 
There  is  only  one  marvel  that  comes  anj'where  near  equal- 
ing it,  and  that  is  our  rejection  of  his  merc3^  Oh  that, 
this  morning,  God's  Spirit  would  show  the  people  of  this 


156        THE  WEECK  OF  THE  '' SCHILLER^ 

audience  how  thorough  is  the  ruin  of  a  man  who  will  not 
have  Christ! 

The  present  Eddystone  Light -house  stands  very  firmly, 
but  that  was  not  the  character  of  the  first  structure  that 
stood  on  that  dangerous  point.  There  was  an  eccentric 
man  by  the  name  of  Henry  Winstanley,  who  built  a  very 
fantastic  light-house  at  that  point  in  1696;  and,  when  it 
was  nearly  done,  he  felt  so  confident  that  it  was  strong, 
that  he  expressed  the  wish  that  he  might  be  in  it  in  the 
roug;hest  hurricane  that  ever  blew  in  the  face  of  heaven. 
And  he  got  his  wish.  One  November  night,  in  1703,  he 
and  his  workmen  were  in  that  light -house,  when  there 
came  down  the  most  raging  tempest  that  had  ever  been 
known  in  that  region.  On  the  following  morning  the  peo- 
ple came  down  to  see  about  the  light-house.  Not  a  vestige 
of  the  wall,  not  a  vestige  of  the  men.  Only  two  twisted 
iron  bolts,  showing  where  the  light-house  had  stood.  So 
there  are  men  building  up  their  fantastic  hopes,  and  plans, 
and  enterprises,  and  expectations,  thinking  they  will  stand 
forever,  saying,  "  We  don't  want  any  of  the  defenses  of  the 
Gospel.  We  can  stand  for  ourselves.  We  are  not  afraid. 
We  take  all  the  risks,  and  we  defy  every  thing;"  and 
suddenly  the  Lord  blows  upon  them,  and  they  are  gone. 
Only  two  things  left — a  grave  and  a  lost  soul. 

But  I  learn,  also,  from  this  sad  providence  liow  near  peo- 
ple can  come  to  a  happy  destination^  and  yet  not  reach  it. 
They  expected  next  day  to  be  in  Plymouth  harbor.  Only 
a  few  more  pacings  of  the  deck  by  the  captain,  and  then 
the  four  blades  of  the  screw  would  cease  their  revolutions, 
and  the  steamer  would  stop.  Almost  in,  and  yet  those 
people  did  not  live  to  see  Plymouth  harbor.  They  landed 
at  the  bottom  of  the  sea.     So  men  sometimes  come  very 


THE  ^yRECE  OF  THE  '' SCHILLER^  157 

near  the  harbor  of  God's  mercy,  but  do  not  quite  get  into 
it.  They  expected  to  land ;  we  expected  they  would  land ; 
but  they  strike  on  some  fatal  hinderance,  and  perish.  Last 
Sabbath  there  were  in  this  house  persons  who  were  almost 
Christians  who  never  will  be  fully  Christians.  They  got 
along  just  so  far,  and  then  some  violent  jerk  of  resolution 
stopped  them.  They  thought  religion  would  not  be  dig- 
nified to  them,  or  they  thought  that  it  might  disorganize 
their  worldly  business,  or  they  thought  they  might  com- 
promise their  reputation  among  some  of  their  friends,  or 
they  thought  they  had  got  on  so  far  toward  the  religious 
hope  that  they  were  saved.  No,  no.  Remember  the 
Schiller!  Paul  saw  two  boats,  and  one  was  called  Alto- 
gelhtr,  and  the  other  was  called  Almost,  and  he  saw  the 
Altogether  go  into  port,  flags  flying,  and  he  saw  the  Almost 
founder  at  sea.  Not  quite  a  Christian,  is  to  be  no  Chris- 
tian at  all.  To  lift  one's  hand  toward  Christ,  and  yet  not 
to  take  hold  of  him,  is  to  be  a  castaway.  Some  of  you, 
some  time  ago,  wept  over  sin.  I  saw  anxiety  on  some  of 
your  countenances.  Your  lips  moved  as  if  in  prayer.  I 
thought  3'ou  were  going  to  be  saved.  I  have  changed  my 
mind.  You  disastrously  stopped.  You  struck  a  reef.  Re- 
member the  Schiller! 

Again,  I  learn  that  when  our  time  is  up  we  have  to  go. 
Those  people  were  sure  of  a  safe  arrival.  Every  thing 
promised  it.  They  were  in  as  stout  an  iron  steamer  as 
ever  goes  across  the  Atlantic.  It  had  seven  water-tight 
compartments.  There  were  eight  small  boats  on  the  side. 
They  had  a  skillful  and  long  -  experienced  commander. 
Yet  the  Lord  decided  that  between  ten  o'clock  at  night 
and  five  o'clock  in  the  morning  three  hundred  and  forty- 
two  souls  should  pass  out  of  life,  and  he  executed  that  de- 


158  THE  WRECK  OF  THE  '' SCHILLEU:' 

cision.  And  so  the  time  of  our  exit  out  of  this  life  is  ap- 
pointed. You  can  not  tell  mine,  nor  I  yours.  The  whole 
thing  is  uncertain,  and  I  am  glad  it  is.  If  we  knew  the 
year  and  the  day  when  we  were  to  leave  this  life,  we 
would  be  disqualified  for  work,  and  we  would  be  saying, 
"  Now  we  have  another  year  less  to  live,  and  another  week 
less  to  live,  and  another  day  less  to  live,"  and  we  would  be 
nervous  and  morbid,  and  a  nuisance  to  ourselves  and  to 
others.  But  while  it  is  uncertain  to  us,  it  is  not  uncertain, 
to  God.  He  has  appointed  the  time.  The  utmost  pru- 
dence on  our  part  can  not  avert  it.  When  that  moment 
comes,  we  may  be  on  the  land,  we  may  be  on  the  sea ;  but 
a  message  from  the  next  world  will  be  put  into  our  hand, 
and  though  nobod}^  else  can  see  it,  we  will  see  it,  and  read 
it,  and  respond  to  it,  and  tramp  away.  The  call  will  be 
so  inexorable  that  we  must  be  off.  And  yet  we  act  as 
though  we  had  an  infallible  life-belt  that  would  hold  us  up 
in  any  wave.  We  act  as  if  we  were  more  invulnerable  than. 
Achilles,  even  the  heel  encased.  We  do  not  realize  that 
our  final  moment  is  coming  toward  us  as  straight  as  a  bird 
ever  flies.  We  feel  cool  and  unconcerned  and  indifferent, 
as  though  we  had  a  thousand  years  to  live  on  earth,  and 
the  nine  hundred  and  ninety-ninth  would  be  as  favorable 
for  this  work  as  any  of  its  predecessors.  Meanwhile,  our 
comrades  and  best  friends  are  dropping  around  us  like 
slacked  lime  —  every  afternoon,  between  two  and  five 
o'clock,  the  processions  going  toward  the  cemeteries,  and 
we  not  realizing  that  we  will,  after  a  while,  be  silent  lead- 
ers in  some  such  procession.  So  near  eternity,  and  yet  no 
fittedness.  Startling  warnings  passing  out  of  mind.  The 
shriek  of  the  ScJiiUe)\  like  that  of  the  Arctic  and  the  Atlantic 
and  the  Ville  du  Havre,  forgotten.     The  trouble  is,  we  do 


THE   WRECK   OF  THE  ''SGHILLEIV  159 

not  realize  that  tlie  very  poorest  hour  in  which  to  equip 
ourselves  for  eternity  is  the  last  hour.  Of  all  the  thou- 
sands and  thousands  of  hours  in  our  whole  life,  there  is 
not  one  so  poorly  fitted  for  this  work  as  the  closing  hour; 
find  yet  we  choose  the  poorest  out  of  all  for  this  prepara- 
tion. AVhat  chance  had  those  peo})le  to  pray  on  that  ves- 
sel, awakened  suddenly  out  of  sleep,  the  waves  of  the  ocean 
dashing  through  the  gaping  sides  of  the  steamer?  Sonne 
of  them,  indeed,  got  a  few  moments  by  clambering  up  into 
the  rigging;  but,  alas  if  they  put  off  the  work  of  the 
soul's  salvation  till  that  moment  when,  in  undress,  they 
swung  in  the  ratlines  on  the  careening  ship  until  the  smoke- 
stack fell,  and  the  foremast  fell,  and  the  mainmast  fell,  and 
there  was  a  plash,  and  a  gurgle,  and  all  was  over!  How 
much  better,  my  brother,  it  would  be  for  you  to  prepare 
now  for  that  eternity  which  may  any  moment  break  in 
upon  you  as  suddenly  as  it  did  upon  them !  Unless  your 
heart  is  radically  changed  by  the  grace  of  God,  and  Christ 
is  your  personal  Saviour,  the  plunge  of  the  Schiller  in  the 
English  Channel  was  only  a  feeble  type  of  the  deeper 
going-down  of  your  immortal  spirit.  Why  not  now  re- 
pent and  believe,  and  pray  and  live  ?  This  disaster  de- 
mands your  arousal.  "Wake  before  it  be  too  late.  Re- 
member the  Schiller/ 


160  EXASPERATING  COMFOKTERS. 


EXASPERATING  COMFORTERS. 

"Miserable  comforters  are  ye  all." — Job  xvi.,  2. 

THE  man  of  Uz  bad  a  great  many  trials ;  the  loss  of 
his  family,  the  loss  of  bis  property,  tbe  loss  of  bis 
health ;  but  tbe  most  exasperating  thing  that  came  upon 
him  was  the  tantalizing  talk  of  tbose  who  ought  to  have 
sympathized  with  him.  And  looking  around  upon  tbera, 
and  weighing  what  they  had  said,  be  utters  the  words  of 
my  text. 

Wby  did  God  let  sin  come  into  the  world  ?  It  is  a 
question  I  often  bear  discussed,  but  never  satisfactorily  an- 
swered. God  made  tbe  world  fair  and  beautiful  at  the 
start.  If  our  first  parents  bad  not  sinned  in  Eden,  they 
might  have  gone  out  of  that  garden,  and  found  fifty  para- 
dises all  around  tbe  earth  —  Europe,  Asia,  Africa,  North 
and  South  America — so  many  flower-gardens  or  orcbards 
of  fruit,  redolent  and  luscious.  I  suppose  that  when  God 
poured  out  tbe  Gibon  and  tbe  Iliddekel,  be  poured  out, 
at  tbe  same  time,  tbe  Hudson  and  the  Susquehanna;  tbe 
whole  earth  was  very  fair  and  beautiful  to  look  upon. 
Wby  did  it  not  stay  so?  God  bad  the  power  to  keep 
back  sin  and  woe.  Wby  did  he  not  keep  them  back? 
Wby  not  every  cloud  roseate,  and  every  step  a  joy,  and 
every  sound  music,  and  all  the  ages  a  long  jubilee  of  sin- 
less men  and  sinless  women?  God  can  make  a  rose  as 
easily  as  he  can  make  a  thorn.  Why,  then,  the  predomi- 
nance of  thorns?     He  can  make  good,  fair,  ripe  fruit  as 


EXASPERATINO   COMFORTERS.  IgX 

well  as  gnarled  and  sour  fruit.  Why  so  much,  then,  that 
is  gnarled  and  sour?  He  can  make  men  robust  in  health. 
Why,  then,  are  there  so  many  invalids?  Why  not  have 
for  our  whole  race  perpetual  leisure,  instead  of  this  tug 
and  toil  and  tussle  for  a  livelihood?  I  will  tell  you  why 
God  let  sin  come  into  the  world — when  I  get  on  the  other 
side  of  the  River  of  Death.  That  is  the  place  where  such 
questions  will  be  answered  and  such  mysteries  solved,  lie 
who  this  side  that  river  attempts  to  answer  the  question, 
only  illustrates  his  own  ignorance  and  incompetency.  All 
I  know  is  one  great  fact,  and  that  is,  that  a  herd  of  woes 
have  come  in  upon  us,  trampling  down  every  thing  fair 
and  beautiful.  A  sword  at  the  gate  of  Eden,  and  a  sword 
at  every  gate.  More  people  under  the  ground  than  on  it. 
The  grave-yards  in  vast  majority.  The  six  thousand  win- 
ters have  made  more  scars  than  the  six  thousand  summers 
can  cover  up.  Trouble  has  taken  the  tender  heart  of  this 
world  in  its  two  rough  hands,  and  pinched  it  until  the  na- 
tions wail  with  the  agony.  If  all  the  mounds  of  grave- 
yards that  have  been  lifted  were  put  side  by  side,  you 
might  step  on  them  and  on  nothing  else,  going  all  around 
the  world,  and  around  again,  and  around  again.  These 
are  the  facts.  And  now  I  have  to  say  that,  in  a  world 
like  this,  the  grandest  occupation  is  that  of  giving  condo- 
lence. This  holy  science  of  imparting  comfort  to  the  trou- 
bled we  ought  all  of  us  to  study.  There  are  many  of  you 
who  could  look  around  upon  some  of  your  very  best 
friends  who  wish  5'ou  well  and  are  very  intelligent,  and 
yet  be  able  truthfully  to  say  to  them  in  your  days  of  trou- 
ble, "  Miserable  comforters  are  ye  all." 

I  remark,  in  the  first  place,  that  very  voluble  jyeo'ple  are  in- 
competent for  the  work  of  giving  comfort.    Bildad  and  Eliphaz 


162  EXASPERATINO   VOMFORTEES. 

had  the  gift  of  language,  and  with  their  words  almost  both- 
ered Job's  life  out.  Alas  for  these  voluble  people  that  go 
among  the  houses  of  the  afflicted  and  talk,  and  talk,  and  talk, 
and  talk!  They  rehearse  their  own  sorrows,  and  then  they 
tell  the  poor  sufferers  that  they  feel  badly  now,  but  they 
will  feel  worse  after  a  while.  Silence !  Do  you  expect, 
with  a  thin  court-plaster  of  words,  to  heal  a  wpund  deep  as 
the  soul  ?  Step  very  gently  around  about  a  broken  heart. 
Talk  very  softly  around  those  whom  God  has  bereft. 
Then  go  your  way.  Deep  sympathy  has  not  much  to  sa3^ 
A  firm  grasp  of  the  hand,  a  compassionate  look,  just  one 
word  that  means  as  much  as  a  whole  dictionary,  and  you 
have  given,  perhaps,  all  the  comfort  that  a  soul  needs.  A 
man  has  a  terrible  wound  in  his  arm.  The  surgeon  comes 
and  binds  it  up.  "Now,"  he  says,  "carry  that  arm  in  a 
sling,  and  be  very  careful  of  it.  Let  no  one  touch  it." 
But  the  neighbors  have  heard  of  the  accident,  and  they 
come  in,  and  they  say,  "Let  us  see  it."  And  the  bandage 
is  pulled  off,  and  this  one  and  that  one  must  feel  it,  and 
see  how  much  it  is  swollen  ;  and  there  is  irritation,  and  in- 
flammation, and  exasperation,  where  there  ought  to  be  heal- 
ing and  cooling.  The  surgeon  comes  in,  and  says,  "  What 
does  all  this  mean  ?  You  have  no  business  to  touch  those 
bandages.  That  wound  will  never  heal  unless,  you  let 
it  alone."  So  there  are  souls  broken  down  in  sorrow. 
What  they  most  want  is  rest,  or  very  careful  and  gentle 
treatment ;  but  the  neighbors  have  heard  of  the  bereave- 
ment or  of  the  loss,  and  they  come  in  to  sympathize,  and 
they  say,  "Show  us  now  the  wound.  What  were  his  last 
words?  Eehearse  now  the  whole  scene.  How  did  you 
feel  when  you  found  you  were  an  orphan  ?"  Tearing  off 
the  bandages  here,  and  pulling  them  off  there,  leaving  a 


EXASrERATIXG   COMFOIiTERS.  103 

gbastly  wound  that  the  bahn  of  God's  grace  had  already 
begun  to  heal.  Oh,  let  no  loquacious  people,  with  ever- 
rattling  tongues,  go  into  the  homes  of  the  distressed  ! 

Again  I  remark,  that  all  those  persons  are  incompetent 
to  give  any  kind  of  comfort  who  act  mcrel}^  as  ivoiidly  phi- 
losopJiers.  They  come  in  and  say,  "  Why,  this  is  what  you 
ought  to  liave  expected.  The  laws  of  nature  must  have 
their  way;"  and  then  they  get  eloquent  over  something 
they  have  seen  in  jjost-mortem  examinations.  Now,  away 
with  all  human  philoso])hy  at  such  a  time!  What  differ- 
ence does  it  make  to  that  flither  and  mother  what  disease 
their  son  died  of?  He  is  dead,  and  it  makes  no  difference 
whether  the  trouble  was  in  the  epigastric  or  hypogastric 
region.  If  the  philosopher  be  of  the  stoical  school  he  will 
come  and  say,  "You  ought  to  control  your  feelings.  You 
must  not  cry  so.  You  must  cultivate  a  cooler  tempera- 
ment. You  must  have  self-reliance,  self-government,  self- 
control ;"  an  iceberg  reproving  a  hyacinth  for  having  a 
drop  of  dew  in  its  eye.  A  vioHnist  has  his  instrument, 
and  he  sweeps  his  fingers  across  the  strings,  now  evoking 
strains  of  joy,  and  now  strains  of  sadness.  He  can  not 
play  all  the  tunes  on  one  string.  The  human  soul  is  an 
instrument  of  a  thousand  strings,  and  all  sorts  of  emotions 
■were  made  to  play  on  it.  Now  an  anthem,  now  a  dirge. 
It  is  no  evidence  of  weakness  when  one  is  overcome  of 
sorrow.  Edmund  Burke  was  found  in  the  pasture -field 
with  his  arms  around  a  horse's  neck,  caressing  him,  and 
some  one  said,  "Why,  the  great  man  has  lost  his  mind!" 
No;  that  horse  belonged  to  his  son  who  had  recently  died, 
and  his  great  heart  broke  over  the  grief.  It  is  no  sign  of 
weakness  that  men  are  overcome  of  their  sorrows.  Thank 
God  for  the  relief  of  tears.     Have  you  never  been  in  trou- 


164  EXASPEIIATING    COMFORTERS. 

ble  when  you  could  not  weep,  and  you  would  have  given 
any  thing  for  a  good  cry?  David  did  well  when  he 
mourned  for  Absalom,  Abraham  did  well  when  he  be- 
moaned Sarah,  Christ  did  well  when  he  wept  for  Lazarus; 
and  the  last  man  that  I  want  to  see  come  anywhere  near 
me  when  I  have  any  kind  of  trouble  is  a  worldly  philos- 
opher. 

Again  I  remark,  that  those  persons  are  incompetent  for 
the  work  of  comfort-bearing  who  have  nothing  hut  cant  to 
offer.  There  are  those  who  have  the  idea  that  you  must 
groan  over  the  distressed  and  afflicted.  There  are  times 
in  grief  when  one  cheerful  face  dawning  upon  a  man's  soul 
is  worth  a  thousand  dollars  to  him.  Do  not  whine  over 
the  afflicted.  Take  the  promises  of  the  Gospel,  and  utter 
them  in  a  manly  tone.  Do  not  be  afraid  to  smile  if  you 
feel  like  it.  Do  not  drive  any  more  hearses  through  that 
poor  soul.  Do  not  tell  him  the  ti'ouble  was  foreordained  ; 
it  will  not  be  any  comfort  to  know  it  was  a  million  years 
coming.  If  you  want  to  find  splints  for  a  broken  bone,  do 
not  take  cast-iron.  Do  not  tell  them  it  is  God's  justice 
that  weighs  out  grief.  They  want  now  to  hear  of  God's 
tender  merc3^  In  other  words,  do  not  give  them  aqua  for- 
tis  when  they  need  valerian. 

Again  I  remark,  that  those  persons  are  poor  comfort- 
ers who  have  never  had  any  trouble  themselves.  A  larkspur 
can  not  lecture  on  the  nature  of  a  snow-flake — it  never 
saw  a  snow-flake ;  and  those  people  who  have  always  lived 
in  the  summer  of  prosperity  can  not  talk  to  those  who  are 
frozen  in  disaster.  God  keeps  aged  people  in  the  world,  I 
think,  for  this  very  work  of  sympathy.  They  have  been 
through  all  these  trials.  They  know  all  that  which  irritates 
and  all  that  which  soothes.     If  there  are  men  and  women 


EXASPERATING   COMFORTERS.  165 

here  who  have  old  people  in  the  house,  or  near  at  hand 
.so  that  they  can  easily  reach  them,  I  congratulate  them. 
Some  of  us  have  had  trials  in  life,  and  although  we  have 
had  many  friends  around  about  us,  we  have  wished  that 
father  and  mother  were  still  alive  that  we  might  go  and 
tell  them.  Perhaps  they  could  not  say  much,  but  it  would 
have  been  such  a  comfort  to  have  them  around.  These 
aQ:ed  ones  who  have  been  all  through  the  trials  of  life  know 
how  to  give  condolence.  Cherish  them  ;  let  them  lean  on 
your  arm  —  these  aged  people.  If,  when  you  speak  to 
them,  they  can  not  hear  just  what  you  say  the  first  time, 
and  you  have  to  say  it  a  second  time,  when  you  say  it  the 
second  time,  do  not  say  it  sharp^3^  If  you  do,  you  M-ill  be 
sorry  for  it  on  the  day  when  you  take  the  last  look  and 
brush  back  the  silvery  locks  from  the  wrinkled  brow  just 
before  they  screw  the  lid  on.  Blessed  be  God  for  the  old 
people !  They  may  not  have  much  strength  to  go  around, 
but  they  are  God's  appointed  ministers  of  comfort  to  a 
broken  heart. 

People  who  have  not  had  trial  themselves  can  not  give 
comfort  to  others.  They  may  talk  very  beautifull}',  and 
they  may  give  you  a  great  deal  of  poetic  sentiment;  but 
while  poetry  is  perfume  that  smells  sweet,  it  makes  a  very 
poor  salve.  If  you  have  a  grave  in  your  pathwa}"^,  and 
somebody  comes  and  covers  it  all  over  with  flowers,  it  is  a 
grave  yet.  Those  who  have  not  had  grief  themselves  know 
not  the  mystery  of  a  broken  heart.  They  know  not  the 
meaning  of  childlessness,  and  the  having  no  one  to  put  to 
bed  at  night,  or  the  standing  in  a  room  where  every  book 
and  picture  and  door  is  full  of  memories  —  the  door -mat 
where  she  sat,  the  cup  out  of  which  she  drank — the  place 
where  she  stood  at  the  door  and  clapped  her  hands — the 


166  EXASPERATING   COMFORTERS. 

odd  figures  tliat  she  scribbled — the  blocks  she  built  into  a 
liouse.  Ah  no,  you  must  have  trouble  yourself  before  you 
can  comfort  trouble  in  others.  But  come  all  ye  who  have 
been  bereft  and  ye  who  have  been  comforted  in  your  sor- 
rows, and  stand  around  these  afflicted  souls,  and  say  to 
them,  "I  had  that  yery  sorrow  myself.  God  comforted 
me,  and  he  will  comfort  you;"  and  that  will  go  right  to 
the  spot.  In  other  words,  to  comfort  others,  we  must  have 
faith  in  God,  practical  experience,  and  good,  sound  com- 
mon sense. 

But  there  are  three  or  four  considerations  that  I  will 
bring  this  morning  to  those  who  are  sorrowful  and  dis- 
tressed, and  that  we  can  always  bring  to  them,  knowing 
that  they  will  effect  a  cure.  And  the  first  consideration 
is,  that  God  sends  our  troubles  in  love.  I  often  hear  peo- 
ple in  their  troubles  say,  "Why,  I  wonder  what  God  has 
against  me  !"  They  seem  to  think  God  has  some  grudge 
against  them  because  trouble  and  misfortune  have  come. 
Oh  no.  Do  you  not  remember  that  passage  of  Scripture, 
"  Whom  the  Lord  loveth  he  chasteneth  ?"  A  child  comes 
in  with  a  very  bad  splinter  in  its  hand,  and  you  try  to  ex- 
tract it.  It  is  a  very  painful  operation.  The  child  draws 
back  from  you,  but  you  persist.  You  are  going  to  take 
that  splinter  out,  so  you  take  the  child  with  a  gentle  but 
firm  grasp  ;  for  although  there  may  be  pain  in  it,  the  splin- 
ter must  come  out.  And  it  is  love  that  dictates  it,  and 
makes  you  persist.  My  friends,  I  really  think  that  nearly 
all  our  sorrows  in  this  world  are  only  the  hand  of  our  Fa- 
ther extracting  some  thorn.  If  all  these  sorrows  were  sent 
by  enemies,  I  would  say,  arm  yourselves  against  them ; 
and,  as  in  tropical  climes,  when  a  tiger  comes  down  from 
the  mountains  and  carries  off  a  child  from  the  village,  the 


EXASFA'ItATIXG    COMFOJiTERS.  107 

neighbors  band  together  and  go  into  the  forest  and  hunt 
the  monster,  so  I  would  have  you,  if  I  thought  these  mis- 
fortunes were  sent  by  an  enemy,  go  out  and  battle  against 
them.  But  no ;  they  come  from  a  Father  so  kind,  so  lov- 
ing, so  gentle,  that  the  prophet,  speaking  of  his  tender- 
ness and  mercy,  drops  the  idea  of  a  father,  and  says, 
"As  one  whom  his  mother  comforteth,  so  will  I  comfort 
you." 

Again  I  remark,  there  is  comfort  in  the  thought  that 
God,  by  all  this  process,  is  'joing  to  make  you  useful.  Do 
you  know  that  those  who  accomplish  the  most  for  God 
and  heaven  have  all  been  under  the  harrow?  Show  me  a 
man  that  has  done  any  thing  for  Chi'ist  in  this  day,  in  a 
public  or  private  place,  who  has  had  no  trouble  and  whose 
path  has  been  smooth.  Ah  no.  Go  this  afternoon  at  three 
o'clock  into  that  beautiful  parlor  in  the  city  of  Philadel- 
phia, and  see  some  twenty  outcast  children  there,  and  ask 
the  history  of  that  home,  and  why  it  is  that  that  Christian 
woman  every  Sabbath  afternoon  gathers  in  these  outcasts 
and  talks  with  them,  and  prays  with  them,  and  tells  them 
of  Jesus,  and  is  getting  them,  by  the  grace  of  God,  pre- 
pared for  heaven.  You  want  to  know  the  historj'-  of  that 
family  ?  I  could  go  back  and  tell  it.  She  was  not  always 
an  earnest  Christian  woman — once  a  daughter  of  fashion; 
but  the  first  day  of  my  pastorate  in  Philadelphia  I  con- 
fronted her  in  awful  grief.  In  the  next  room  her  only 
child  lay.  He  had  been  drowned  at  Long  Branch,  and 
they  had  just  brought  him  in.  Oh,  how  impotent  all  hu- 
man comfort  seemed  to  be  there  and  then  !  But  God  com- 
forted and  lifted  her  out  of  that  daikness,  and  through  all 
that  tj'ibulation  he  blessed  her,  and  by  a  baptism  of  tears 
she  was  set  apart  to  look  after  the  outcast  and  the  destitute 


168  EXASFEEATING   COMFORTEBS. 

and  the  abandoned.     What  useless  beings  we  are  until 
sanctified  trouble  molds  us ! 

I  once  went  through  an  axe -factory,  and  I  saw  them 
take  the  bai'S  of  iron  and  thrust  them  into  the  terrible  fur- 
naces. Then  besweated  workmen  with  long  tongs  stirred 
the  blaze.  Then  they  brought  out  a  bar  of  iron  and  put 
it  into  a  crushing-machine,  and  then  they  put  it  between 
jaws  that  bit  it  in  twain.  Then  they  put  it  on  an  anvil, 
and  there  were  great  hammers  swung  by  machinery — each 
one  a  half- ton  in  weight — that  went  thump!  thump! 
thump!  If  that  iron  could  have  spoken,  it  would  have 
said,  "Wh}^  all  this  beating?  Why  must  I  be  pounded 
any  more  than  any  other  iron  ?"  The  workmen  would 
have  said,  "  We  want  to  make  axes  out  of  you,  keen,  sharp 
axes — axes  with  which  to  hew  down  the  forest,  and  build 
the  ship,  and  erect  houses,  and  carry  on  a  thousand  enter- 
prises of  civilization.  That's  the  reason  we  pound  you." 
Now,  God  puts  a  soul  into  the  furnace  of  trial,  and  then  it 
is  brought  out  and  run  through  the  crushing-machine,  and 
then  it  comes  down  on  the  anvil,  and  upon  it  blow  after 
blow,  blow  after  blow,  and  the  soul  cries  out,  "O  Lord, 
what  does  all  this  mean?"  God  says,  "I  want  to  make 
something  very  useful  out  of  you.  You  shall  be  some- 
thing to  hew  with  and  something  to  build  with.  It  is  a 
practical  process  through  which  I  am  putting  you."  Yes, 
my  Christian  friends,  we  want  more  tools  in  the  Church 
of  God.  Not  more  wedges  to  split  with  :  we  have  enough 
of  these.  Not  more  bores  with  which  to  drill ;  we  have 
too  many  bores.  What  we  really  want  is  keen,  sharp, 
well-tempered  axes,  and  if  there  be  any  other  way  of  mak- 
ino-  them  than  in  the  hot  furnace,  and  on  the  hard  anvil, 
and  under  the  heavy  hammer,  I  do  not  know  what  it  is. 


EXASPERATINa   COMFORTERS.  169 

Remember  tliat  if  God  brings  any  kind  of  chastisement 
upon  you,  it  is  only  to  make  you  useful.  Do  not  sit  down 
discouraged,  and  say,  "I  have  no  more  reason  for  living. 
I  wish  I  were  dead."  Oh,  there  never  was  so  much  rea- 
son for  your  living  as  now  !  By  this  ordeal  you  have  been 
consecrated  a  priest  of  the  Most  High  God.  Go  out  and 
do  your  whole  work  for  the  Master. 

Again,  there  is  comfort  in  the  thought  that  all  our 
troubles  are  a  revelation.  Have  you  ever  thought  of  it  in 
that  connection  ?  The  man  who  has  never  been  through 
chastisement  is  ignorant  about  a  thousand  things  in  his 
soul  he  ought  to  know.  For  instance,  here  is  a  man  who 
prides  himself  on  his  cheerfulness  of  character.  He  has 
no  patience  with  any  body  who  is  depressed  in  spirits. 
Oh,  it  is  easy  for  him  to  be  cheerful,  with  his  fine  house, 
his  filled  wardrobe,  and  well-strung  instruments  of  music, 
and  tapestried  pai'lor,  and  plenty  of  money  in  the  bank 
waiting  for  some  permanent  investment.  It  is  easy  for 
him  to  be  cheerful.  But  suppose  his  fortune  goes  to 
pieces,  and  his  house  goes  down  under  the  sheriff's  ham- 
mer, and  the  banks  will  not  have  any  thing  to  do  with  his 
paper.  Suppose  those  people  who  were  once  elegantly 
entertained  at  liis  table  get  so  short-sighted  that  they  can 
not  recognize  him  upon  the  street.  How  then?  Is  it  so 
cas}'  to  be  cheerful  ?  It  is  easy  to  be  cheerful  in  the  home, 
after  the  day's  work  is  done,  and  the  gas  is  turned  on,  and 
the  house  is  full  of  romping  little  ones.  But  suppose  the 
piano  is  shut  because  the  fingers  that  played  on  it  will  no 
more  touch  the  keys,  and  the  childish  voice  that  asked 
so  many  questions  will  ask  no  more.  Then  is  it  so  easy  ? 
When  a  man  wakes  up  and  finds  that  his  resources  are  all 
gone,  he  begins  to  rebel,  and  he  says,  "God  is  hard;  God 

8 


170  EXASPERATING    COMFOliTEliS. 

is  outrngeous.  He  bad  no  business  to  do  this  to  nae." 
Mj  friends,  those  of  us  wlio  have  been  through  trouble 
know  what  a  sinful  and  rebellious  heart  we  have,  and  how 
much  God  has  to  put  up  with,  and  how  much  we  need 
pardon.  It  is  only  in  the  light  of  a  flaming  furnace  that 
we  can  learn  our  own  weakness  and  our  own  lack  of 
moral  resource. 

There  is  also  a  great  deal  of  comfort  in  the  fact  that 
there  tvill  he  a  family  reconstruction  in  a  letter  place.  From 
Scotland,  or  England,  or  Ireland,  a  child  emigrates  to  this 
countr}'.  It  is  very  hard  parting,  but  he  comes,  after  a 
while  writing  home  as  to  what  a  good  land  it  is.  Anoth- 
er brother  comes,  a  sister  comes,  and  another,  and  after  a 
while  the  mother  comes,  and  after  a  while  the  father  comes, 
and  now  they  are  all  here,  and  they  have  a  time  of  great 
congratulation  and  a  very  pleasant  reunion.  Well,  it  is 
just  so  with  our  families:  they  are  emigrating  to  a  bet- 
ter land.  Now,  one  goes  out.  Oh,  how  hard  it  is  to  part 
with  him!  Another  goes.  Oh,  how  hard  it  is  to  part 
with  her !  And  another,  and  another,  and  we  ourselves 
will  after  a  while  go  over,  and  then  we  will  be  together. 
Oh,  what  a  reunion  !  Do  you  believe  that?  "Yes,"  you 
say.  You  do  not  1  You  do  not  believe  it  as  you  believe 
other  things.  If  you  did,  and  with  the  same  emphasis, 
wh}'',  it  would  take  nine-tenths  of  your  trouble  off  your 
heart.  The  fact  is,  heaven  to  many  of  us  is  a  great  fog. 
It  is  away  off  somewhere,  filled  with  an  uncertain  and  in- 
definite population.  That  is  the  kind  of  heaven  that  many 
of  us  dream  about ;  but  it  is  the  most  tremendous  fact  in 
all  the  universe — this  heaven  of  the  Gospel.  Our  departed 
friends  are  not  afloat.  The  residence  in  which  you  live  is 
not  so  real  as  the  residence  in  which  they  stay.     You  are 


EXAHrERATINO   COMFOMTEJiS.  171 

afloat,  you  who  do  not  know  in  the  morning  what  will 
happen  before  night.  Tliey  are  housed  and  safe  forever. 
Do  not,  therefore,  pity  your  departed  friends  who  have 
died  in  Christ.  They  do  not  need  any  of  your  pity.  You 
might  as  well  send  a  letter  of  condolence  to  Queen  Victo- 
ria on  her  obscurity,  or  to  the  Kothschilds  on  their  poverty, 
as  to  pity  those  who  have  won  the  palm.  Do  not  say  of 
those  who  are  departed,  "Poor  child!"  "Poor  flither !" 
"  Poor  mother!''  They  are  not  poor.  You  are  poor — you 
whose  homes  have  been  shattered,  not  they.  You  do  not 
dwell  much  with  your  families  in  this  world.  All  day 
long  you  are  off  to  business.  "Will  it  not  be  pleasant  when 
you  can  be  together  all  the  while?  If  you  have  had  four 
children  and  one  is  gone,  and  any  body  asks  how  many 
children  you  have,  do  not  be  so  infidel  as  to  say  three. 
Say  four — one  in  heaven.  Do  not  think  that  the  grave  is 
unfriendly.  You  go  into  your  room,  and  dress  for  some 
grand  entertainment,  and  you  come  forth  beautifully  appar- 
eled ;  and  the  grave  is  only  the  place  where  we  go  to  dress 
for  the  glorious  resurrection,  and  we  will  come  out  radiant, 
radiant,  mortality  having  become  immortality.  Ob,  how 
much  condolence  there  is  in  this  thought!  I  expect  to  see 
my  kindred  in  heaven  ;  I  expect  to  see  them  as  certainly 
as  I  expect  to  go  home  to-day.  Ay,  I  shall  more  certainly 
see  them.  Eight  or  ten  will  come  up  from  the  grave-yard 
back  of  Somerville ;  and  one  will  come  up  from  the  mount- 
ains back  of  Amoy,  China;  and  another  will  come  up  from 
the  sea  off  Cape  Ilatteras;  and  thirty  will  come  up  from 
Greenwood  ;  and  I  shall  know  them  better  than  I  ever 
knew  them  here.  And  your  friends — they  may  be  across 
the  sea,  but  the  trumpet  that  sounds  here  will  sound  there. 
You  will  come  up  on  just  the  same  day.     Some  morning 


172  EXASPERATING   COMFORTERS. 

you  have  overslept  yourself,  and  you  open  your  eyes,  and 
see  that  the  sun  is  high  in  the  heavens,  and  you  say,  "I 
have  overslept,  and  I  must  be  up  and  off."  So  you  will 
open  your  eyes  on  the  morning  of  the  resurrection,  in  the 
full  blaze  of  God's  light,  and  you  will  say,  "I  must  be  up 
and  away."  Oh  yes,  you  will  come  up,  and  there  will  be 
a  reunion,  a  reconstruction  of  your  family.  I  like  what 
Ilalburton,  I  think  it  was — good  old  Mr.  Halburton — said 
in  his  last  moments,  "  I  thank  God  that  I  ever  lived,  and 
that  I  have  a  father  in  heaven,  and  a  mother  in  heaven,  and 
brothers  in  heaven,  and  sisters  in  heaven,  and  I  am  now 
going  up  to  see  them." 

I  remark  once  more  :  our  troubles  in  this  world  are  pre- 
parative for  glory.  What  a  transition  it  was  for  Paul — from 
the  slippery  deck  of  a  foundering  ship  to  the  calm  presence 
of  Jesus!  What  a  transition  it  was  for  Latimer — from  the 
stake  to  a  throne !  What  a  transition  it  was  for  Robert 
Hall — from  insanity  to  glory!  What  a  transition  it  was 
for  Richard  Baxter— from  the  dropsy  to  the  "saint's  ever- 
lasting rest!"  And  what  a  transition  it  will  be  for  yo\i — 
from  a  world  of  sorrow  to  a  world  of  joy  !  John  Holland, 
when  he  was  dying,  said,  "  What  means  this  brightness  in 
the  room?  Have  you  lighted  the  candles?"  "No,"  they 
replied,  "  we  have  not  lighted  any  candles."  Then  said  he, 
"  Welcome,  heaven !"  the  light  already  beaming  upon  his 
pillow.  0  ye  who  are  persecuted  in  this  world !  your 
enemies  will  get  off  the  track  after  a  while,  and  all  will 
speak  well  of  3'ou  among  the  thrones.  Ho!  ye  who  are 
sick  now,  no  medicines  to  take  there.  One  breath  of  the 
eternal  hills  will  thrill  you  with  immortal  vigor.  And  ye 
who  are  lonesome  now,  there  will  be  a  thousand  spirits  to 
welcome  you  into  their  companionship.     O  ye  bereft  souls ! 


EXASPERATINQ   COMFORTERS.  173 

there  will  be  no  grave-digger's  spade  that  will  cleave  the 
side  of  that  hill,  and  there  will  be  no  dirge  wailing  from 
that  temple.  The  river  of  God,  deep  as  the  joj  of  heaven, 
will  roll  on  between  banks  odorous  with  balm,  and  over 
depths  bright  with  jewels,  and  under  skies  roseate  with 
gladness,  argosies  of  light  going  down  the  stream  to  the 
stroke  of  glittering  oar  and  the  song  of  angels!  Not  one 
sigh  in  the  wind  ;  not  one  tear  mingling  with  the  waters. 

"  There  shall  I  bathe  my  weary  soul 
In  seas  of  heavenly  rest, 
And  not  a  wave  of  trouble  roil 
Across  my  peaceful  breast." 


174  A    GOOD    WOMAN  PROMOTED. 


A  GOOD   WOMAN  PROMOTED. 

"I  go  to  prepare  a  place  for  you." — John  xiv.,  2. 

MONG  the  most  startling  stories  ever  recited  are  those 
connected  with  the  adventures  of  the  Western  emi- 
grant. In  the  days  before  the  rail  train  showered  its  sparks 
upon  the  darkness  of  the  wilderness,  people  put  out  on 
foot,  or  in  slow  and  cumbrous  wagons,  from  their  Eastern 
homes,  and  in  the  wild  thickets  of  the  Far  West  sought  to 
clear  for  their  families  a  home.  Ofttimes  leaving  their 
tender  little  ones  in  the  New  England  village,  with  blan- 
ket and  gun  and  axe,  they  dared  the  forest,  terrible  with 
bear's  bark  and  panther's  scream,  and  the  war-whoop  cry 
of  scalping  savages.  After  a  while  the  trees  were  felled, 
and  the  under-brush  was  burned,  and  the  farm  was  cleared, 
and  the  house  was  built.  Then  word  came  back  here  say- 
ing that  every  thing  was  ready.  The  family  would  get  into 
ihe  wagon  and  start  on  at  slow  pace  for  a  very  long  journey. 
A-ftcr  a  while,  some  evening-tide,  the  shout  of  recognition 
was  heard,  and  by  the  fire  of  the  great  back-log  the  newly- 
arrived  would  recount  the  exciting  experiences  of  the  way. 
Well,  my  friends,  we  are  all  about  to  become  emigrants 
to  a  far  country.  This  is  no  place  for  us  to  stay.  Our 
older  brother,  Jesus,  he  of  the  scarred  brow  and  the  blis- 
tered feet,  has  gone  ahead  to  build  our  mansion  and  to 
clear  the  way  for  us;  and  he  sends  a  letter  back,  saying 
he  has  it  all  ready,  and  I  break  the  seal  of  that  letter  and 
read  to  you  these  words,  "  I  go  to  prepare  a  place  for  you." 


A   GOOD    WOJIAX  Pli'O.VOTEIJ.  175 

I  might  put  it  in  another  shape.  A  young  man  re- 
solves to  build  a  home  for  himself.  lie  has  pledged 
himself  in  one  of  the  purest  of  earthly  attachments,  lie 
toils  no  more  for  himself  than  for  the  one  who  will  share 
with  him  the  results  of  his  industrious  accumulation.  Aft- 
er a  while  the  fortune  is  made,  the  house  is  built,  the 
right  hands  are  joined,  the  blessing  is  invoked,  the  joy  is 
consummated.  So  Jesus,  the  Lover  of  our  souls,  has  been 
toiling  to  make  a  place  for  us.  He  is  fitting  up  our  man- 
sion, and  is  gathering  around  it  every  thing  that  can  pos- 
sibly enchant  the  soul,  and  after  a  while  he  will  say,  "It  is 
all  ready  now,"  and  he  will  reach  down  his  hand,  and  take 
up  to  his  fair  residence  "  the  Church,  which  is  the  Lamb's 
wife."     "  I  go  to  prepare  a  place  for  you." 

"But,"  saj's  some  one,  "that  implies  that  heaven  is  a 
place.  I  have  heard  a  great  many  people  say  it  was 
merely  a  condition,  and  that  wherever  the  souls  of  the 
righteous  are,  there  is  heaven."  Absurd  idea!  Christ 
ascended  to  heaven,  and  there  must  have  been  a  heaven  to 
go  to.  Elijah  went  up  to  heaven,  and  there  must  have 
been  a  heaven  for  him  to  go  to.  The  Bible  was  not  writ- 
ten merely  for  philologists  and  hair-splitters,  but  for  com- 
mon-sense pcoj^le ;  and  the  plain  reading  of  my  text  im- 
plies not  only  that  heaven  is  a  condition,  but  that  it  is  a 
glorious  locality.     "  I  go  to  prepare  a  place  for  you." 

Where  is  heaven  ?  It  is  the  question  which  every  in- 
telligent Christian  sometimes  asks,  and  he  especially  asks 
it  in  time  of  bereavement.  When  his  loved  ones  go  away 
from  him,  you  say  they  are  in  heaven  ;  but  he  says, 
"  Where  is  heaven?"  You  know  there  are  a  great  many 
theories  in  regard  to  it.  The  Mohammedans  think  that 
the  good  Moslems,  as  soon  as  they  leave  this  life,  come 


176  ^  GOOD  wo^rAX  promoted. 

to  a  fragrant  pool  of  water  fed  by  streams  from  paradise. 
They  drink  out  of  that  fragrant  pool,  and  their  thirst  is 
assuaged.  Then  they  go  into  paradise,  and  the  trees  have 
bells  hanging  on  the  branches,  chiming  whenever  the  air 
strikes  them.  They  gaze  upon  the  tree  of  life,  which  they 
say  has  so  broad  a  shadow  that  it  takes  a  swift  horse  one 
hundred  years  to  race  across  it.  They  think  that  there  is 
a  river  made  up  of  wine  and  honey,  flowing  between  banks 
of  camphor,  over  beds  of  musk.  They  suppose  that  every 
spirit  that  goes  into  the  future  world  has  many  attendants 
•with  baskets  and  with  chalices  of  pure  gold.  They  sup- 
pose that  the  inhabitant  of  the  future  world  sits  down  to  a 
great  banquet  without  any  satiety,  so  that,  after  a  hundred 
years  of  eating  and  drinking,  the  appetite  is  as  good  as  at 
the  moment  the  soul  sat  down.  That  is  the  Mohammedan 
heaven. 

The  Hindoo  thinks  that  heaven  is  all  around  about — 
merely  a  change  of  hodj.  A  vulture  dies,  and  his  spirit 
enters  a  man;  the  man  dies,  and  his  spirit  enters  the  vul- 
ture, and  after  a  great  many  transmigrations  of  the  soul,  it 
is  absorbed  in  the  spirit  of  the  great  Brahm.  Our  fore- 
fathers thought  heaven  to  be  a  place  of  pastimes,  heroic 
strife,  and  great  banqueting;  spirits  would  fight  and  be 
wounded,  and  then  come  to  the  celestial  streams  and  wash 
off  their  wounds,  and  they  would  be  well  again;  then  they 
would  sit  down  at  a  banquet  and  drink  wine  out  of  the 
skulls  of  their  enemies,  and  rise  up  and  romp,  and  dance 
and  play. 

The  aborigines  of  our  own  country  think  heaven  to  be 
beyond  the  great  mountains.  After  you  get  beyond  the 
great  mountains,  there  is  a  great  river  ;  and  after  you  have 
passed  that  great  river,  there  is  a  vast  country ;  and  after 


A    GOOD    WUJfAX  PROMOTED.  177 

you  have  passed  that  wide  country,  there  is  a  world  of 
water;  and  in  that  world  of  water  there  are  a  thousand 
isles,  beautiful  with  streams  and  trees,  and  there  are  buf- 
iii\o  and  deer  there ;  and  all  the  departed  red  man  has  to 
do  is  to  whistle  up  his  dogs  and  go  a-shooting  to  all  eter- 
nity. 

I  mention  these  things  because  I  want  you  to  know  it 
is  impossible  for  a  man  to  get  any  idea  of  heaven  without 
the  Bible,  and  to  kindle  in  your  soul  a  feeling  of  gratitude 
to  God  that  you  have  this  Lamp,  not  only  for  your  path- 
way here,  but  to  throw  its  glories  upon  the  world  that  is 
to  come.  There  is,  however,  among  Christian  people  great 
difference  of  opinion  as  to  where  heaven  is  or  will  be. 
Some  of  the  best  Christian  people  think  that  this  world 
is  to  be  the  final  residence  of  the  righteous.  I  can  see  how 
God  could  take  all  the  rigors  out  of  our  climate,  and  all 
repulsions  out  of  our  world,  and  make  it  fair,  and  bright, 
and  beautiful,  and  fit  for  eternal  occupancy.  But  I  can  not 
adopt  the  theory.  It  seems  to  me  the  world  is  not  large 
enough  for  heaven.  Considering  all  the  myriads  that  have 
gone,  and  all  the  myriads  that  are  to  go,  there  would  not 
be  room  enough  on  the  continents  and  on  the  seas  for  such 
a  great  host.  Besides  that,  heaven  is  already  in  existence. 
Tens  of  thousands  of  people  have  gone  into  it.  It  can  not 
be  that  all  our  departed  friends  are  floating  about  in  space 
waiting  for  our  world  to  get  filled  up,  in  order  that  they 
may  have  a  heaven.  Oh  no.  They  are  there  now.  Christ 
said,  "I  go  to  prepare  a  place  for  you;"  and  if,  eighteen 
centuries  ago,  he  began  the  work,  I  tliink  it  is  done  now. 
Besides  that,  the  Bible  declares  that  the  world,  and  all  the 
things  that  are  therein,  will  be  burned  up;  and  if  a  thing 
is  burned  up,  you  can  not  repair  it,  and  you  can  not  make 


178  -A   GOOD   WOMAN  PROMOTED. 

it  a  fit  residence  for  the  righteous.  If  it  is  first  destroyed, 
it  will  be  an  entirely  new  world.  Besides  that,  the  ele- 
ments of  dissolution  are  already  in  our  world.  I  refer  not 
to  the  coal-mines  in  the  South,  which  have  been  twenty 
years  on  fire.  I  refer  not  to  the  vapors  coming  up  from 
the  hot  springs,  showing  great  heat  underneath,  but  to  the 
common  geological  idea  that  the  centre  of  this  world  is  al- 
ready on  fire.  Besides,  there  is  all  about  a  subtle  fluid 
which,  if  decomposed  or  set  loose  from  other  combinations, 
would  shatter  this  world  into  pieces  so  small  that  nothing 
but  the  eye  of  the  infinite  God  could  find  the  splinters  of 
the  wreck.  It  would  destroy  mountains  and  seas  and  air. 
So  it  will  require  no  omnipotent  pry  to  lift  up  the  mount- 
ains in  the  last  day.  It  will  not  require  the  blast  of  the 
red-hot  furnace  of  God's  indignation  to  set  the  sea  on  fire.  / 
It  will  not  require  the  grip  of  Almightiness  to  pull  down  the 
pillar  of  this  world.  God  has  only  to  take  his  hands  off  it, 
and  it  is  gone.  The  mere  cessation  of  operation  on  God's 
part  would  be  the  cause  of  the  wreck.  Besides  that,  other 
worlds  have  burned.  Fifteen  hundred  stars  have  disap- 
peared. The  astronomer,  through  his  telescope,  again  and 
again  has  seen  the  conflagration  of  a  world.  Why  not  our 
world  burn  up?  Ay,  I  adopt  the  theory  that  Peter  de- 
clares in  his  epistle  when  he  says,  "  The  world  and  all  that 
is  therein  shall  be  burned  up." 

There  are  other  Christian  people  who  suppose  that  each 
sun  is  to  be  the  heaven  of  the  surrounding  sj^stem.  You 
know  that  there  are  sisterhoods  of  worlds  that  join  each 
other  in  bands  of  light  around  some  great  central  orb,  and 
Christian  people  have  supposed  that  these  surrounding 
worlds  were  merely  schools  in  which  souls  went  to  be  pre- 
pared for  the  central  light,  the  central  sun ;  and  there  is  a 


A   GOOD    U'OJIAX  PROMOTED.  179 

Bible  intimation  that  is  not  at  all  inconsistent  with  that 
idea;  for,  while  planets  have  day  and  night,  and  heat  and 
cold,  showing  the  possibility  of  growth  and  dissolution,  the 
sun  has  no  night,  and  that  corresponds  with  the  Bible  state- 
ment about  heaven,  "  There  shall  be  no  night  there."  Still, 
I  reject  the  idea,  because  if  the  sun  of  each  system  were 
the  heaven  of  the  system,  we  should  have  a  multitude  of 
paradises,  and  the  words  of  my  text  could  not  be  true,  "I 
go  to  prepare  a  place  " — that  is,  one  place — "for  3^ou." 

There  is  one  other  theory  consonant  with  the  Bible  and 
consonant  with  science,  and  I  like  any  thing  that  is  proved 
by  both  those  books,  or  is  not  inharmonious  with  either 
of  them.  Modern  discovery  shows  that  the  planets  go 
around  the  sun,  and  that  the  sun  and  the  planets — indeed 
all  the  celestial  systems — go  in  one  direction  and  in  one 
circle,  all  going  around  about  some  one  great  central 
world ;  a  world  vast  beyond  all  astronomical  calculation ; 
a  world  vast  enough,  by  power  of  gravitation,  to  wheel  the 
whole  universe  around  it.  As  our  sun — our  little  sun — is 
five  hundred  times  larger  than  the  earth  and  the  planets, 
thus  wheeling  them  around  it,  so,  then,  I  suppose,  the  great 
central  world  of  which  I  speak  is  five  hundred  times  larger 
than  all  the  other  worlds  put  together,  so  as  to  wheel  them 
around  it.  You  must  believe  in  the  existence  of  such  a 
central  world,  unless  you  reject  all  scientific  exploration 
and  deduction.  That  world,  stupendous  beyond  arithme- 
tic, beyond  words,  beyond  imagination,  I  believe  is  heaven. 
From  all  parts  of  the  universe  the  souls  of  the  dead  will 
fly  to  that  centre.  That  shall  gather  up  all  the  resources 
and  splendors  and  glories  that  God  ever  created  or  redeem- 
ing love  ever  achieved.  Gradually  the  worlds  will  expire; 
not  only  ours,  but  those  and  these,  and,  finally,  all  save 


180  A    GOOD    WOMAN  PROMOTED. 

two — the  one  great  central  world  of  which  I  speak,  and  a 
world  of  darkness ;  the  first  the  residence  of  the  righteous, 
the  other  the  abode  of  the  wicked.  You  say  this  theory 
makes  heaven  a  great  way  off.  No !  No !  We  calculate 
distance  by  the  time  taken  to  traverse  it,  and  the  departed 
spirit  will  not  take  the  millionth  part  of  a  second  to  get 
there. 

But  here  I  have  to  tell  you  that  I  do  not  much  care 
w^here  heaven  is.  All  I  want  is  to  get  there  myself,  and 
get  these  people  there.  Christ  is  there,  and  the  angels  of 
God  are  there,  and  all  my  Christian  kindred  who  have  de- 
parted are  there. 

"No  grief  can  turn  that  day  to  night, 
The  darkness  of  that  land  is  light." 

Into  that  world  how  many  of  our  loved  ones  have  gone ! 
We  have  sent  delegations  into  it.  This  moi'uing  I  wish 
to  speak  more  especially  of  one  who  went  out  from  among 
US — a  Christian  woman  known  all  the  world  over.  She  has 
just  entered  into  that  glorious  world,  that  vast  world,  that 
world  where  Christ  is.  Among  the  Hannah  Moores,  and 
the  Charlotte  Elizabeths,  and  the  Mrs.  Adoniram  Judsons, 
and  the  Mrs.  Fletchers,  Phebe  Palmer  has  taken  her  place, 
radiant  as  any  of  them — perhaps  more  radiant  than  all  of 
them.  It  seems  to  me  she  must  have  had  a  very  easy  en- 
trance. She  did  not  have  to  crowd  through.  When  half- 
and-half  Christians  come  up  to  the  gate  of  heaven,  rae- 
thinks  they  have  to  squeeze  in  ;  that  the  gate  grazes  them 
on  both  sides  or  closes  behind  them,  catching  the  skirts  of 
their  garment.  Not  so  with  her.  An  abundant  entrance 
•v\\as  administered  unto  her.  I  think  a  mandate  went  forth, 
"Lift  up  your  heads,  ye  everlasting  gates,  and  let  her  come 


A   GOOD    WOMAX  FHOJIOTEI).  181 

through."  Oh,  I  should  have  liked  to  have  stood  some- 
where near  the  gate,  to  have  heard  the  multitudinous 
shout  that  greeted  her  from  all  the  armies  of  the  saved ! 

I  can  not,  as  a  minister  of  the  Most  High  God,  allow 
such  a  life  to  be  passed  and  such  a  death  to  be  witnessed 
without,  as  far  as  I  may,  prolonging  the  echo. 

I  admired  her  as  the  discoverer  of  what  is  called,  rightly 
or  wrongly,  "the  higher  life."  Columbus  no  more  certain- 
ly discovered  our  New  World  than  Phebe  Palmer  discov- 
ered that  new  world  of  light,  and  love,  and  joy,  and  peace 
which  she  spoke  of.  Columbus  did  not  create  this  New 
World;  he  only  pointed  it  out.  Phebe  Palmer  did  not 
create  "  the  higher  life ;"  she  only  exhibited  it.  She 
showed  to  the  Church  of  God  that  there  were  mountain- 
peaks  of  Christian  satisfaction  that  it  had  never  attained, 
and  created  in  the  souls  of  us  who  have  not  reached  that 
elevation  a  longing  for  the  glorious  ascent.  For  thirty- 
seven  years — longer  than  the  life,  perhaps,  of  the  majority 
of  people  present  to-day — every  Tuesday  she  had  a  meet- 
ing, the  sole  object  of  which  was  the  elevation  of  the  stand- 
ard of  Christian  holiness;  and  there  were  hundreds  of 
Christian  ministers  who  came  in,  and  sat  down  at  her  feet, 
and  got  her  blessing,  and  went  out  stronger  for  Christian 
combat.  It  was  no  rare  thing,  in  her  evangelistic  meet- 
ings in  the  United  States  and  Europe,  to  have  ministers 
of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  and  the  Baptist  Church,  and 
the  Methodist  Church,  and  the  Episcopal  Church,  and  all 
the  churches,  coming  and  kneeling  down  at  the  altar,  be- 
moaning their  unbelief  and  their  coldness,  and  then  rising 
up,  saying,  "I  have  got  it — the  blessing."  Some  carica- 
tured, and  said  there  was  no  such  thing  as  "a  higher  life" 
of  peace  and  Christian  satisfaction ;  but  she  lived  long 


182  A   GOOD    W03LiN  FJ10JI0T£D. 

enougli  to  see  the  whole  Christian  Church  waking  up  to 
this  doctrine,  and  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  coming 
on  the  high  table-land  where  once  she  stood,  she  herself 
having  passed  on  now,  higher  up,  that  she  may  still  beckon 
us  on,  crying,  "Up  this  way!  Up  this  way!"  Glorious 
soul  of  Phebe  Palmer!  Synonym  of  holiness  unto  the 
Lord! 

I  am  also  amazed  at  the  number  of  conversions  under 
her  ministry.  She  was  as  far  removed  as  possible  from 
those  females  who  go  through  the  land  bawling  about  their 
rights,  neglecting  their  home  duties,  having  their  husbands 
hold  their  hats  and  shawls  while  they  make  speeches  in 
behalf  of  their  rights  of  suffrage,  or  in  behalf  of  a  seat 
in  Congressional  halls — those  restless  women,  marriage  to 
whom  would  be  pandemonium.  As  far  as  the  north  pole 
is  from  the  south  pole,  Phebe  Palmer  was  from  all  them. 
Always  accompanied  by  her  husband,  she  went  out  to 
serve  Christ,  and  she  wanted  no  higher  right  than  this,  the 
grandest  right  ever  given  to  man  or  woman — the  right  to 
commend  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  to  a  dying  world.  Mod- 
estly and  in  Christian  consecration  she  went  forth  to  serve 
God.  It  will  take  eternal  ages  to  tell  the  story  of  her  evan- 
gelistic labors.  Newcastle,  Sunderland,  Penrith,  Mackles- 
field,  Darlington,  Isle  of  Wight,  still  feel  her  overmastering 
influence.  In  her  Christian  meetings  a  young  man  rose 
up,  and  said,  "  Wh}^,  I  have  got  a  new  nature;"  and  a 
timid  woman  exclaimed,  "Do  you  think  Christ  will  have 
me?"  and  the  evangelist  put  her  arms  around  her  neck, 
and  said,  "  Yes,  Jesus  will  have  you."  And  another  cried 
out,  "Oh,  what  a  fool  I  have  been  all  my  days,  to  reject 
Christ."  And  the  Duke  of  Wellington's  blind  soldier, 
seventy  years  of  age,  both  eyes  put  out  in  battle,  was  led 


A    aOOD    WOMAN  PROMOTED.  183 

by  a  little  child  to  the  communfcn-rail,  and  -while  prayer 
was  being  offered,  on  his  blasted  vision  eternal  light  broke 
in.  And  the  soldier  in  the  Queen's  employ,  drafted  for 
India,  stood  up  in  the  meeting,  in  the  red-jacket  uniform, 
and  said,  "  Pi'ay  for  me,  wherever  I  go,  that  I  may  be  faith- 
ful. You  look  at  my  red  jacket;  but  if  you  could  see  un- 
der it,  you  would  see  a  white  and  blood-washed  robe."  At 
Windsor  the  musicians  of  the  Queen's  band,  instruments 
under  arm,  stopped  and  looked  and  listened,  and  then  and 
there  heard  the  voice  of  Christ  from  this  woman's  lips,  and 
took  Christ  with  them  back  to  the  palace.  And  the  police 
that  stood  at  the  door,  too,  listening,  even  they  surrendered 
themselves  to  the  Lord  who  bought  them.  Places  of  in- 
iquity cowered  before  her.  At  North  Shields,  a  man  who 
kept  intoxicating  liquors  for  sale,  said,  "I  don't  know  why 
Dr.  and  Mrs.  Palmer  came  here  to  bother  me.  Before 
they  came  to  this  place,  I  used  to  draw  off  half  a  barrel  of 
beer  every  night  for  my  customers.  Now  I  scarcely  draw 
off  a  quart."  Sixty  souls  saved  one  night  in  Sunderland 
under  her  work.  Six  hundred  souls  brought  to  God  at 
her  call  in  Manchester.  One  thousand  souls,  through  her, 
finding  redeeming  love  at  Madeley.  Three  thousand  four 
hundred  and  forty-four  brought  to  God  in  the  district  of 
Nevvcaslle.  Twenty-five  thousand  souls  saved  under  the 
instrumentality  of  Pliebe  Palmer!  What  a  record  for 
cartii  and  heaven  !  What  an  array  for  the  judgment-day  ! 
What  a  doxology  for  the  one  hundred  and  forty  and  four 
thousand!  What  a  mountain  of  coi'onets  flung  down  at 
the  feet  of  Jesus! 

I  am  amazed,  also,  at  her  power  of  prayer.  We  dabble 
in  it  once  in  a  while,  but  do  not  know  much  about  the  art. 
Phebe  Palmer  got  what  she  asked  for,  because  she  knew 


184:  A   GOOD    W02IAN  PROMOTED. 

bow  to  ask.  Sailing  up-'-toward  Liverpool  ■with  her  hus- 
band, she  prays  God  that  some  one  may  meet  them  on  the 
beach,  and  welcome  them  to  England.  Coming  up  by  the 
shore  there  is  a  man  in  the  garb  of  a  minister,  standing. 
She  says,  "There  is  the  man  who  has  come  to  welcome  us 
to  England."  The  boat  strikes  the  dock,  and  the  minister 
steps  on  board,  and  says,  "Is  this  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Palmer? 
Welcome  to  the  shores  of  old  England !"  Worn  out 
physically  with  her  Christian  exertions,  she  asks  for 
strength.  God  gives  it  to  her.  Laboring  in  some  place 
amidst  great  obstacles,  she  asks  that  that  night  a  great 
multitude  may  be  saved ;  and  a  multitude  press  into  the 
side-room,  repenting,  praying,  believing,  rejoicing.  On  the 
way  home  from  England,  a  man  falls  overboard.  She 
sees  him  floating  almost  a  mile  away.  She  cries  mightily 
unto  God  for  that  man's  rescue,  saying,  "  Save  him,  and  I 
will  point  him  to  Christ,  and  I  will  try  to  have  him  be- 
come a  Christian."  And  she  prayed  in  an  agony  that  he 
might  be  saved,  and,  by  what  seemed  a  miraculous  effort, 
he  was  saved  and  brought  on  deck,  and  the  evangelist  did 
her  work  with  him.  Starting  with  the  safe  belief  that 
the  Lord  never  lies,  she  found  out  the  secret  of  all-pre- 
vailing and  all-conquering  prayer.  0  Thou  who  hearest 
prayer,  teach  us  how  to  pray!  I  believe  that  one  hundred 
Phebe  Palmers  would  bring  the  millennium  to-morrow 
morning. 

But  the  shepherdess,  crook  in  hand,  has  gone  home  to 
rest  by  the  still  waters.  The  loving  wife,  the  gentle  sister, 
the  Christian  mother,  the  flaming  evangelist,  is  dead.  One 
would  have  supposed  that,  after  so  useful  a  life,  the  Lord 
would  have  allowed  her  to  pass  off  easily.  No.  Ten 
weeks  of  great  anguish,  a  complication  of  diseases  adding 


A   GOOD   WOMAy  PROMOTJlD.  185 

pang  to  pang.  It  seemed  as  if  Christ  had  said,  "Now,  on 
this  death-bed,  I  will  demonstrate  that  nn^  grace  is  suffi- 
cient for  every  thing,  and  can  bear  up  under  every  thing." 
It  seemed  as  if  Chi  ist  had  said,  "  Now,  here  is  a  royal  gem 
for  a  royal  place.  I  have  been  fifty  years  busy  with  it, 
polishing  it  and  polishing  it,  and  now  only  a  few  more 
cuttings  of  the  chisel  and  a  few  more  raspings  of  the  file, 
and  it  will  be  as  rare  a  gem  as  was  ever  prepared  in  all 
the  centuries.  Ten  weeks  of  pain  are  nothing  before  an 
eternity  of  jubilation  !"  At  half-past  two  o'clock  on  the 
afternoon  of  November  2d,  God  put  up  his  tools  and  said, 
"  The  work  of  polishing  is  done.     Let  her  go  now  P^ 

I  open  to  you  to-day  another  classic.  There  is  no  need 
of  your  going  back  any  more  to  saintly  death-beds  in  the 
last  century,  when  we  have  had  such  an  exit  here.  It 
seems  as  if  the  clouds  were  only  now  parting.  I  hear  the 
rumbling  of  the  vanishing  wheels.  We  stand  in  the  light 
of  the  opening  of  the  King's  gate  as  she  went  in.  Hear 
the  story  of  her  dying  raptures.  It  seems  to  have  all  the 
quietness  of  a  pastoral,  and  yet  to  be  blood-stirring  as  a 
battle-march,  ller  life  was  a  song;  her  death  a  "  Halle- 
lujah Chorus."  In  her  last  sickness  she  said,  "  I  am  fully 
saved,  I  have  not  a  single  doubt.  Hallelujah  to  God  and 
the  Lamb!  I  am  within  speaking  distance  of  my  home  in 
paradise.  You  have  been  the  kindest  of  husbands  to  me,. 
and  our  love  has  been  abiding,  and  it  shall  abide  forever." 
And  when  blindness  came,  and  she  could  not  see  at  all, 
she  said,  "Oh,  what  sweet  nurses  I  have!  Jesus  was  left 
all  alone."  "When  they  read  to  her  the  promises,  she  said, 
"Put  my  name  in  those  promises."  And  ever  after  that, 
when  the  promises  were  read,  it  was  with  the  name  of 
Phebe  Palmer  attached  to  them.     She  said,  "Hallelujah I 


186  A   GOOD   WOMAy  PROMOTED. 

precious  Jesus!  I  pass  througli  the  valley,  but  without 
the  shadow,  trusting  in  Christ.  Oh,  so  weary!  How  I 
should  like  to  go!  But  Thy  will,  not  mine,  be  done.  I 
thought,  before  this,  the  light  of  eternal  day  would  dawn 
upon  me,  but  it  has  not  jet  dawned."  When  a  daughter 
said,  "Do  you  see  me,  ma?"  she  said,  "I  see  no  one  but 
Jesus,  but  I  shall  soon  see  the  King  in  his  beauty.  Glory 
be  to  the  Father !  Glory  be  to  the  Son  !  Glory  be  to  the 
Holy  Ghost!"  When  they  bathed  her  fevered  hands,  she 
said,  "  I  shall  soon  bathe  my  hands  in  the  life-giving  wa- 
ters." On  the  last  morning,  as  she  woke  up,  she  said,  "I 
thought  I  saw  the  chariot!  So  glorious!  glorious!  'O 
death!  where  is  thy  sting?  O  grave!  where  is  thy  vic- 
tory? Thanks  be  unto  God,  who  giveth  us  the  victory 
through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ!'"  Then  she  pronounced 
the  apostolic  benediction — a  benediction  for  her  husband, 
for  her  children,  for  the  Church  universal,  and  for  the 
world  whose  redemption  she  had  tried  to  hasten — "May 
the  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  love  of  God, 
and  the  love  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  be  with  you  all  forever. 
Amen."     And  Phebe  Palmer  was  dead! 

No,  no,  no — not  dead.  She  lives !  she  lives  !  It  seems 
to  me  as  if  I  could  almost  see  her  standing  this  morning 
on  the  battlements  of  heaven,  waving  the  triumph,  calling 
down  to  us  through  this  sweet  Sabbath  air;  and  I  wave 
back  to  her.  Hail,  ransomed  spirit !  Hallelujah  !  Halle- 
lujah ! 

O  bereft  souls!  be  comforted.  To  have  had  such  a 
wife,  and  such  a  sister,  and  such  a  mother,  is  enough  honor 
for  one  family.  Let  her  memory  be  to  you  both  exulta- 
tion and  inspiration.  Be  sure  3'ou  get  on  the  road  she 
traveled,  that  you  mny  come  out  at  the  same  glory.     She 


A    GOOD    WOJIAX  PROMOTED.  187 

will  be  waiting  for  you,  waiting  at  the  foot  of  the  throne, 
waiting  under  the  trees  of  life,  waiting  on  the  banks  of  the 
river,  and  some  day  she  will  cry  out,  "My  husband's  com- 
ing! my  sister's  coming!  my  child's  coming.  Stand  back, 
ye  blessed  ones,  and  let  me  welcome  them  in,"  And  the 
grief  of  the  afternoon  of  November  2d  will  be  swallowed 
in  the  joy  of  the  heavenly  reception.  Oh,  how  like  old 
times  it  will  be  to  get  mother  back  again,  sweeter  than 
when  you  sat  upon  her  lap  in  infancy,  and  nestled  in  her 
arms,  and  looked  up  into  her  loving  foce  as  she  leaned 
over  3^our  cradle.  But  it  will  be  mother  without  the  short- 
ness of  breath.  Mother  without  the  weary  limbs.  Mother 
without  the  paroxysm  of  distress.  Sainted  mother!  Glo- 
rified mother  !     Enthroned  mother  ! 

Blessed  be  God  that  so  many  of  us  have  mothers  in 
heaven.  They  may  not  have  moved  in  as  celebrated  a 
sphere  as  yours ;  but  they  were  just  as  dear  to  us,  and  their 
tenderness  breaks  upon  us  to-day  in  a  flood  that  overflows 
the  banks,  and  we  rejoice  at  the  prospect  of  flinging  our- 
selves into  their  arms  when,  tired  out  with  the  work  of  life, 
we  go  home.  Alas  for  any  man  that  misses  heaven,  when 
he  has  a  Christian  mother  there! 

Oh  that  the  name  of  Phebe  Palmer  might  be  one  of  the 
watch-words  to  rouse  up  the  Church  universal  1  The  Meth- 
odist Church  can  not  monopolize  her  name.  She  belonged 
to  that  Church,  she  lived  in  it,  she  died  in  it,  she  loved 
it;  but  you  can  not  build  any  denominational  wall  high 
enough  to  shut  out  that  light  from  our  souls.  She  is  mine. 
She  is  yours.  She  belongs  to  all  earth,  and  all  heaven. 
Eternal  God !  let  the  story  of  her  life  and  death  thrill  all 
nations ! 

Then,  when  our  hands  get  hot  with  the  last  fever,  rnay 


188  A    GOOD    W02LiX  PROMOTED. 

we  go  up  to  cool  them  in  the  fountains;  and,  when  our 
physical  eye-sight  fails  in  death,  may  we  see  "the  King  in 
his  beauty ;"  and  when  it  is  our  time  to  go,  let  there  be  a 
chariot  to  fetch  us  home ! 

Until  then,  departed  spirit,  farewell!  We  can  afford 
to  wait  for  such  a  grand  reunion.  Farewell !  Farewell ! 
And  now  may  the  God  who  brought  again  from  the  dead 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  that  great  Shepherd  of  the  sheep, 
through  the  blood  of  the  everlasting  covenant,  make  you 
faithful  in  every  good  work  to  do  his  will. 


THE  CRIMSON  COAT.  189 


THE  CRIMSON  COAT. 

"Who  is  this  that  cotnetli  from  Edom,  witli  dyed  garments  from  Bozrah  ? 
this  tliat  is  glorious  in  his  apparel,  traveling  in  the  greatness  of  his  strength  ?" 
— Isaiah  Ixiii.,  1. 

EDOM  and  Bozrah  having  been  the  scene  of  fierce  bat- 
tle, when  those  words  are  used  here  or  in  any  other 
part  of  the  Bible  they  are  figures  of  speech  setting  forth 
scenes  of  severe  conflict.  As  now  we  often  use  the  word 
Waterloo  to  describe  a  decisive  contest  of  any  kind,  so  the 
words  Bozrah  and  Edom  in  this  text  are  figures  of  speech 
descriptive  of  a  scene  of  great  slaughter.  Whatever  else 
the  prophet  may  have  meant  to  describe,  he  most  certainly 
meant  to  depict  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  saying,  "Who  is 
this  that  cometh  from  Edom,  with  dyed  garments  from 
Bozrah,  traveling  in  the  greatness  of  his  strength?" 

When  a  general  is  about  to  go  out  to  the  wars,  a  flag 
and  a  sword  are  publicly  presented  to  him,  and  the  maid- 
ens bring  flowers,  and  the  young  men  load  the  cannon, 
and  the  train  starts  amidst  a  huzza  that  drowns  the  thun- 
der of  the  wheels  and  the  shriek  of  the  whistle.  But  all 
this  will  give  no  idea  of  the  excitement  that  there  must 
have  been  in  heaven  when  Christ  started  out  on  the  cam- 
paign of  the  world's  conquest.  If  they  could  have  fore- 
seen the  siege  that  would  be  laid  to  him,  and  the  maltreat- 
ment he  would  suffer,  and  the  burdens  he  would  have  to 
carry,  and  the  battles  he  would  have  to  fight,  I  think  there 
would  have  been  a  million  volunteers  in  heaven  who  would 


190  THE  ClUMISON  COAT. 

have  insisted  on  coming  along  with  him  ;  but  no,  they 
only  accompanied  him  to  the  gate,  their  last  shout  heard 
clear  down  to  the  earth,  the  space  between  the  two  worlds 
bridged  with  a  great  hosanna.  You  know  there  is  a  wide 
difference  between  a  man's  going  off  to  battle  and  coming- 
back  again.  When  he  goes  off,  it  is  with  epaulets  untan- 
gled, with  banner  unspecked,  with  horses  sleek  and  shining 
from  the  groom.  All  that  there  is  of  struggle  and  pain 
is  to  come  yet.  So  it  was  with  Christ.  He  had  not  yet 
fought  a  battle.  He  was  starting  out,  and  though  this 
world  did  not  give  him  a  warm-hearted  greeting,  there  was 
a  gentle  mother  who  folded  him  in  her  arms;  and  a  babe 
finds  no  difference  between  a  stable  and  a  palace,  between 
courtiers  and  camel-drivers.  As  Jesus  stepped  on  the  stage 
of  this  world,  it  was  amidst  angelic  shouts  in  the  galleries 
and  amidst  the  kindest  maternal  ministrations.  But  soon 
hostile  forces  began  to  gather.  They  deployed  from  the 
Sanhedrim.  They  were  detailed  from  the  standing  army. 
They  came  out  from  the  Cesarean  castles.  The  vagabonds 
in  the  street  joined  the  gentlemen  of  the  mansion.  Spirits 
rode  up  from  hell,  and  in  long  array  there  came  a  force  to- 
gether that  threatened  to  put  to  rout  this  newly  arrived 
one  from  heaven.  Jesus  now  seeing  the  battle  gather- 
ing, lifted  his  own  standard;  but  who  gathered  about  it? 
How  feeble  the  recruits !  A  few  shoremen,  a  blind  beggar, 
a  woman  with  an  alabaster  box,  another  woman  with  two 
mites,  and  a  group  of  friendless,  moneyless,  and  position- 
less  people  came  to  his  standard.  What  chance  was  there 
for  him?  Nazareth  a2;ainst  him.  Bethlehem  ao;ainsthim. 
Capernaum  against  him.  Jerusalem  against  him.  Galilee 
against  him.  The  courts  against  him.  The  army  against 
him.     The  throne  asrainst  him.     The  world  asainst  him. 


THE  CMIM.'iON  VOAT.  191 

All  hell  against  him.  No  wonder  they  asked  him  to  sur- 
render. But  he  could  not  surrender,  he  could  not  apolo- 
gize, he  could  not  take  any  back  steps.  He  had  come  to 
strike  for  the  deliveiance  of  an  enslaved  race,  and  he  must 
do  the  work.  Then  they  sent  out  their  pickets  to  watch 
him.  They  saw  in  what  house  he  went,  and  when  he  came 
out.  They  watched  what  he  ate,  and  who  with;  what  he 
drank,  and  how  much.  They  did  not  dare  to  make  their 
final  assault,  for  they  knew  not  but  that  behind  him  there 
might  be  a  reinforcement  that  was  not  seen.  But  at  last 
the  battle  came.  It  was  to  be  more  fierce  than  Bozrah, 
more  bloody  than  Gettysburg,  involving  more  than  Auster- 
litz,  more  combatants  employed  than  at  Chalons,  a  ghast- 
lier conflict  than  all  the  battles  of  the  earth  put  together, 
though  Edmund  Burke's  estimate  of  thirty-five  thousand 
millions  of  the  slain  be  accurate.  The  day  was  Friday. 
The  hour  was  between  twelve  and  three  o'clock.  The  field 
was  a  slight  hillock  north-west  of  Jerusalem.  The  forces 
engaged  were  earth  and  hell,  joined  as  allies  on  one  side, 
and  heaven,  represented  by  a  solitary  inhabitant,  on  the 
other. 

The  hour  came.  Oh,  what  a  time  it  was !  I  think  that 
that  day  the  universe  looked  on.  The  spirits  that  could 
be  spared  from  the  heavenly  temple,  and  could  get  con- 
veyance of  wing  or  chariot,  came  down  from  above,  and 
spirits  getting  furlough  from  furnaces  beneath  came  up; 
and  they  listened,  and  they  looked,  and  they  watched. 
Oh,  what  an  uneven  battle!  Two  worlds  armed  on  one 
side;  an  unarmed  man  on  the  other.  The  German  regi- 
ment of  the  Roman  army  at  that  time  stationed  at  Je- 
rusalem began  the  attack.  They  knew  how  to  fight,  for 
they  belonged  to   the   most   thcroughly  drilled  army  of 


192  THE  CRIMSON  COAT. 

all  the  world.  With  spears  glittering  in  the  sun,  they 
charged  up  the  hill.  The  horses  prance  and  rear  amidst 
the  excitement  of  the  populace — the  heels  of  the  riders, 
plunged  in  the  flanks,  urging  them  on.  The  weapons 
begin  to  tell  on  Christ.  See  how  faint  he  looks !  There 
the  blood  starts,  and  there,  and  there,  and  there.  If  he 
is  to  have  reinforcements,  let  him  call  them  up  now. 
No;  he  must  do  this  work  alone — alone.  He  is  dying. 
Feel  for  yourself  of  the  wrist;  the  pulse  is  feebler.  Feel 
under  the  arm ;  the  warmth  is  less.  He  is  dying.  Ay, 
they  pronounce  him  dead.  And  just  at  that  moment 
that  they  pronounced  him  dead  he  rallied,  and  from  his 
wounds  he  unsheathed  a  weapon  which  staggered  the  Ro- 
man legions  down  the  hill,  and  hurled  the  Satanic  battal- 
ions into  the  pit.  It  was  a  weapon  of  love — infinite  love, 
all-conquering  love.  Mightier  than  javelin  or  spear,  it  tri- 
umphed over  all.  Put  back,  ye  armies  of  earth  and  hell  I 
The  tide  of  battle  turns.  Jesus  hath  overcome.  Let  the 
people  stand  apart  and  make  a  line,  that  he  may  pass  down 
from  Calvary  to  Jerusalem,  and  thence  on  and  out  all 
around  the  world.  The  battle  is  fought.  The  victory  is 
achieved.  The  triumphal  march  is  begun.  Hark  to  the 
hoofs  of  the  warrior's  steed,  and  the  tramping  of  a  great 
multitude!  for  he  has  many  friends  now.  The  Hero  of 
earth  and  heaven  advances.  Cheer!  cheer!  "Who  is  this 
that  cometh  from  Edom,  with  dyed  garments  from  Bozrah, 
traveling  in  the  greatness  of  his  strength?" 

We  behold  here  a  new  revelation  of  a  blessed  and  start- 
ling fact.  People  talk  of  Christ  as  though  he  were  going 
to  do  something  grand  for  us  after  a  while.  He  has  done 
it.  People  talk  as  though,  ten  or  twenty  years  from  now, 
in  the  closing  hours  of  our  life,  or  in  some  terrible  pass  of 


THE  CRIMSON  COAT.  193 

life,  Jesus  will  help  us.  He  has  done  the  work  already. 
He  did  it  eighteen  hundred  and  forty-two  years  ago.  You 
might  as  well  talk  of  Washington  as  though  he  were  going 
to  achieve  our  national  independence  in  1950,  as  to  speak 
of  Christ  as  though  he  were  going  to  achieve  our  salvation 
in  the  future.  He  did  it  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  33,  eight- 
een hundred  and  forty-two  years  ago,  on  the  field  of  Boz- 
rah,  the  Captain  of  our  salvation  fighting  unto  death  for 
your  and  my  emancipation.  All  we  have  to  do  is  to  ac- 
cept that  fact  in  our  heart  of  hearts,  and  we  are  free  for 
this  world,  and  we  are  free  for  the  world  to  come.  But, 
lest  we  might  not  accept,  Christ  comes  through  here  to- 
night, "  traveling  in  the  greatness  of  his  strength,"  not  to 
tell  you  that  he  is  going  to  fight  for  you  some  battle  in  the 
future,  but  to  tell  you  that  the  battle  is  already  fought,  and 
the  victory  already  won. 

You  have  noticed  that,  when  soldiers  come  home  from 
the  wars,  they  carry  on  their  flags  the  names  of  the  battle- 
fields where  they  were  distinguished.  The  Englishman 
coming  back  has  on  his  banner  Inkermann  and  Balaklava; 
the  Frenchman,  Jena  and  Eylau ;  the  German,  Versailles 
and  Sedan.  And  Christ  has  on  the  banner  he  carries  as 
conqueror  the  names  of  ten  thousand  battle-fields  he  won 
for  you  and  for  me.  He  rides  past  all  our  homes  of  be- 
reavement— by  the  door-bell  swathed  in  sorrow,  by  the 
wardrobe  black  with  woe,  by  the  dismantled  fortress  of 
our  strength.  Come  out  and  greet  him  to-night,  0  ye 
people!  See  the  names  of  all  the  battle-passes  on  his  flag. 
Ye  who  are  poor,  read  on  this  ensign  the  story  of  Christ's 
hard  crusts  and  pillowless  head.  Ye  who  are  persecuted, 
read  here  of  the  rufilans  who  chased  him  from  his  first 
breath  to  his  last.     Mighty  to  soothe  your  troubles,  mighty 

9  ^    '* 


194  THE  CRIMSON  COAT. 

to  balk  3'our  calamities,  mighty  to  tread  down  your  foes, 
"traveling  in  the  greatness  of  his  strength."  Though  his 
horse  be  brown  with  the  dust  of  the  march,  and  the  fet- 
locks be  wet  with  the  carnage,  and  the  bit  be  red  with  the 
blood  of  your  spiritual  foes,  he  comes  up  to-night,  not  ex- 
hausted from  the  battle,  but  fresh  as  when  he  went  into  it 
— coming  up  from  Bozrah,  "  traveling  in  the  greatness  of 
his  strength." 

You  know  that  when  Augustus,  and  Constantine,  and 
Trajan,  and  Titus  came  back  from  the  wars,  what  a  time 
there  was.  You  know  they  came  on  horseback  or  in 
chariots,  and  there  were  trophies  before  and  there  were 
captives  behind,  and  there  were  people  shouting  on  all 
sides,  and  there  were  garlands  flung  from  the  window,  and 
over  the  highway  a  triumphal  arch  was  sprung.  The  solid 
masonry  to-day  at  Beneventum,  Rimini,  and  Rome  still  tell 
their  admiration  for  those  heroes.  And  shall  we  to-night 
let  our  Conqueror  go  by  without  lifting  any  acclaim? 
Have  we  not  flowers  red  enough  to  depict  the  carnage, 
•white  enough  to  celebrate  the  victory,  fragrant  enough  to 
breathe  the  joy?  Those  men  of  whom  I  just  spoke  drag- 
ged their  victims  at  the  chariot -wheels;  but  Christ,  our 
Lord,  takes  those  who  once  were  captives  and  invites  them 
into  his  chariot  to  ride,  while  he  puts  around  them  the 
arm  of  his  strength,  saying,  "  I  have  loved  thee  with  an 
everlasting  love,  and  the  waters  shall  not  drown  it,  and 
the  fires  shall  not  burn  it,  and  eternity  shall  not  exhaust 
it." 

If  this  be  true,  I  can  not  see  how  any  man  can  carry  his 
sorrows  a  great  while.  If  this*  Conqueror  from  Bozrah  is 
going  to  beat  back  all  your  griefs,  why  not  trust  him? 
Oh !   do  you  not  feel,  under  this  Gospel  to  -  night,  your 


THE  CRTMSON  COAT.  195 

griefs  falling  back,  and  your  tears  drying  up,  as  yoM  hepr 
the  tramp  of  a  thousand  illustrious  promises  led  on  by  the 
Conqueror  from  Bozrah,  "traveling,  traveling,  in  the  great- 
ness of  his  strength  ?" 

On  that  Friday  which  the  Episcopal  Church  rightly  cel- 
ebrates, calling  it  "Good-Friday,"  your  soul  and  mine  were 
contended  for.  On  that  day  Jesus  proved  himself  mightier 
than  earth  and  hell;  and  when  the  lances  struck  him,  he 
gathered  them  up  into  a  sheaf,  as  a  reaper  gathers  the 
grain,  and  he  stacked  them.  Mounting  the  horse  of  the 
Apocalypse,  he  rode  down  through  the  ages,  "  traveling  in 
the  greatness  of  his  strength."  On  that  day  your  sin  and 
mine  perished,  if  we  will  only  believe  it. 

There  may  be  some  one  in  the  house  who  may  say,  "I 
don't  like  the  color  of  this  Conqueror's  garments.  You 
tell  me  that  his  garments  were  not  only  spattered  with  the 
blood  of  conflict,  but  also  that  they  were  soaked,  that  they 
were  saturated,  that  they  were  dj'ed  in  it."  I  admit  it. 
You  say  you  do  not  like  that.  Then  I  quote  to  you  two 
passages  of  Scripture  :  Hebrews  ix.,  22,  "  Without  the  shed- 
ding of  blood  there  is  no  remission."  Leviticus  xvii.,  11, 
"  In  the  blood  is  the  atonement."  But  it  was  not  your 
blood.  It  was  his  own.  Not  only  enough  to  redden  his 
garments  and  to  redden  the  horse,  but  enough  to  wash 
away  the  sins  of  the  world.  Oh,  the  blood  on  his  brow, 
the  blood  on  his  hands,  the  blood  on  his  feet,  the  blood 
on  his  side !  It  seems  as  if  an  artery  must  have  been 
cut. 

"Tliere  is  a  fountain  filled  with  blood 
Drawn  from  Emmanuel's  veins, 
And  sinners  plunged  beneath  that  flood 
Lose  all  their  guilty  stains." 


196  THE  CRIMSON  COAT. 

Some  of  our  modern  theologians  who  want  to  give  God 
lessons  about  the  best  way  to  save  the  world,  tell  us  they 
do  not  want  any  bloods  in  their  redemption.  They  want 
to  take  this  horse  by  the  bit,  and  hurl  him  back  on  his 
haunches,  and  tell  tliis  rider  from  Bozrah  to  go  around 
some  other  way.  Look  out,  lest  ye  fall  under  the  flying 
hoofs  of  this  horse;  lest  ye  go  down  under  the  sword  of 
this  Conqueror  from  Bozrah !  What  meant  the  blood  of 
the  pigeons  in  the  old  dispensation  ?  the  blood  of  the  bull- 
ock? the  blood  of  the  heifer?  the  blood  of  the  lamb?  It 
meant  to  prophesy  the  cleansing  blood,  the  pardoning 
blood,  the  healing  blood  of  this  Conqueror  who  comes  up 
from  Bozrah  to-night,  "traveling  in  the  greatness  of  his 
strength."  No  interest  in  that  blood,  and  you  die.  It  was 
shed  for  you,  if  you  will  accept  it ;  it  will  plead  trumpet- 
tongued  against  you,  if  you  refuse  it.  I  catch  a  handful  of 
the  red  torrent  that  rushes  out  from  the  heart  of  the  Lord, 
and  I  throw  it  over  this  audience,  hoping  that  one  drop  of 
its  cleansing  power  may  come  upon  j-our  soul.  0  Jesus! 
in  that  crimson  tide  wash  my  poor  soul!  We  need  it! 
We  die  !  We  die  !  We  accept  thy  sacrifice  !  Conqueror 
of  Bozrah,  have  mercy  upon  us!  We  throw  our  garments 
in  the  way!  We  fall  into  line!  Eide  on,  Jesus,  ride  on! 
"Traveling,  traveling  in  the  greatness  of  thy  strength." 

But  after  a  while  the  returning  Conqueror  will  reach  the 
gate,  and  all  the  armies  of  the  saved  will  be  with  him.  I 
hope  you  will  be  there,  and  I  will  be  there.  As  we  go 
through  the  gate  and  around  about  the  throne  for  the  re- 
view, "a  great  multitude  that  no  man  can  number" — all 
heaven  can  tell  without  asking,  right  away,  which  one  is 
Jesus,  not  only  because  of  the  brightness  of  his  face,  but 
because,  while  all  the  other  inhabitants  in  glory  are  robed 


THE  CRIMSON  COAT.  197 

in  white — saints  in  white,  cherubim  in  white,  seraphim  in 
white — his  robes  shall  be  scarlet,  even  the  dyed  garments 
of  Bozrah.  I  catch  a  glimpse  of  that  triumphant  joj',  but 
the  gate  opens  and  shuts  so  quickly,  I  can  hear  only  half 
a  sentence,  and  it  is  this,  "  Unto  him  who  hath  washed  us 
in  his  blood !" 


a 98  THE  SYRACUSE  CALAMITY. 


THE  SYRACUSE  CALAMITY. 

"  What  is  your  life  ?" — James  iv.,  14. 

THIS  day  seems  oppressive  to  me  with  solemnities. 
About  to  come  up  through  the  "Narrows"  of  New 
York  harbor  is  a  vessel  of  the  Bremen  line,  brino'ins:  all 
that  remains  on  earth  of  the  pleasure-party  that  went  out 
on  the  14th  of  last  month,  on  Lake  Geneva,  Switzerland. 
Of  the  three  young  men  who  perished  there,  only  one 
body  has  been  reclaimed,  and  parental  arms  from  our  city 
are  stretched  out  to  receive  it.  Welcome  back  to  thy  na- 
tive shores,  0  loved  one!  though  thou  comest  asleep. 
Welcome,  though  it  be  amidst  a  rain  of  tears  and  the  snap- 
ping of  heart-strings!  Eemorseless  lake,  give  back  thy 
dead !     We  would  have  them  pillowed  in  our  cemeteries. 

While  meditating  upon  these  things,  there  comes  a  more 
startling  and  overpowering  cry  from  the  central  city  of  our 
own  State.  Many  whom  we  knew  were  in  that  catastro- 
phe. And  now  the  call  from  New  York  harbor,  louder 
than  the  dash  of  the  wave,  and  the  call  from  Syracuse, 
louder  than  the  crackling  of  the  timbers,  unite  with  the 
call  of  my  text  in  demanding,  "What  is  your  life?" 

The  anatomist,  with  knife  and  skillful  analysis,  has 
sought  to  find  out  the  secret  hiding-place  of  the  principle 
of  life ;  but  there  is  a  barred  gate-way  that  he  can  not 
enter.  No  satisfactory  "definition  has  ever  been  given  of 
what  life  is.  Li  complete  swoon,  when  all  muscular  action 
of  the  heart  has  stopped  and  the  brain  lies  dormant,  life 


TIIK  SYJiACUSF  CALAMITY.  199 

may  still  exist,  and,  rallying  its  scattered  forces,  march  on 
to  three-scoi"e  years  and  ten.  But  I  have  a  lamp  iu  tiie 
light  of  which  I  can  give  an  intelligent  answer  to  this 
question  ;  and  so,  leaving  the  anatomist  to  his  curious,  fas- 
cinating and  sublime  investigation,  I  come  in  the  light  of 
the  Word  of  God  to  answer  the  question,  "  What  is  your 
life?" 

There  may  be,  now  and  then,  in  our  existence  a  staccato 
passage ;  but,  for  the  most  part,  our  days  and  years  pass 
in  a  sort  of  monotone.  We  rise  in  the  morning,  we  break- 
fast, wx  go  to  our  daily  occupation,  we  dine,  we  shake 
hands, we  taste  our  evening  meal,  we  sleep;  and  Tuesday 
is  a  copy  of  Monday,  and  Wednesday  is  an  echo  of  Tues- 
day. If  you  are  foi'ty  years  of  age,  then  3'ou  have  passed 
fourteen  thousand  six  hundred  days ;  and  yet,  without  the 
use  of  memorandum,  you  can  not  give  me  an  account  of 
fifty  of  them.  Our  days  pass  on  with  even  pace,  so  that 
we  seldom  estimate  what  we  are,  what  we  have  been,  and 
what  we  will  be.  Oh  that,  this  morninsr,  this  solemn  and 
overwhelming  providence  in  a  sister  city  might  come  to 
our  ears,  and  give  startling  emphasis  to  this  interlocutory 
of  the  apostle,  "  What  is  your  life?" 

In  answering  this  question  of  my  text,  I  ropl}^,  in  the 
first  place,  our  life  is  a  test  If  you  buy  goods,  you  very 
soon  want  to  find  out  whether  they  are  really  worth  what 
you  paid  for  them.  Every  new  ship  must  make  a  ti'ial 
trip.  If  you  bring  a  man  into  some  important  position, 
and  there  is  a  crisis  where  his  behavior  will  either  make 
or  break  you,  you  say,  "Now  I  will  have  a  chance  to  find 
out  what  he  is."  Well,  everj'  man  is  on  his  trial  trip. 
Men,  angels,  and  devils  are  finding  out  what  is  in  you, 
what  you  are  worth,  and  what  your  weaknesses  are.     No 


200  THE  SYRACUSE  CALAMITY. 

man  livetli  to  himself.  Every  word  you  speak,  every  ac- 
tion you  perform,  has  a  thousand  echoes.  Earth  and  heav- 
en and  hell  are  gazing  upon  your  behavior,  and  you  are 
passing  the  trial.  You  are  watching  me  to  see  whether 
I  am  faithful  or  unfaithful ;  I  am  watching  you  to  see 
whether  you  are  faithful  or  unfaithful ;  and  each  one 
of  us  is  going  now  through  the  solemn,  unmistakable,  tre- 
mendous test. 

I  reply  still  further  to  the  question  of  my  text,  that  our 
life  is  an  apprenticeship.  A  man  works  at  a  trade  four  or 
five  years,  or  he  studies  for  a  profession  six  or  ten  years, 
and  then  he  enters  what  be  considers  his  chief  mission 
But,  my  brethren,  our  entire  life  on  earth  is  an  apprentice 
ship.  Not  until  death  do  we  begin  our  chief  employment 
This  world  is  not  our  principal  workshop.  All  the  inhab 
itants  of  heaven  are  busy  forever.  The  Bible  says  they 
rest  not  day  nor  night.  If  to  carry  on  the  little  business 
of  this  world  it  requires  so  many  hands  and  feet  and  minds, 
who  can  estimate  how  many  activities  will  be  required  to 
carry  on  the  enterprises  of  heaven?  When  our  little 
world  is  finished  and  burned  up,  is  the  whole  universe  to 
stop  business?  Because  one  thread-and-needle  store  on  a 
back  alley  fails,  is  all  the  commerce  of  a  metropolis  ar- 
rested ?  Oh  no.  In  heaven  there  will  be  no  sleeping,  no 
idling.  That  Christian  woman  who  feeds  the  sick  pauper 
on  the  back  street  will  be  a  queen  .over  an  infinite  realm 
of  light  and  joy  and  glory.  And  that  Christian  man  who 
can  hardly  make  his  way  to  church  on  crutches,  will  be  a 
ministering  spirit,  flying  to  one  of  the  farthest  outposts  of 
God's  dominion.  We  do  not  work  in  this  world  ;  we  are 
only  getting  ready  to  work.  We  are  apprentices,  and  have 
not  served  our  time  out.     We  are  students,  and  have  not 


THE  SYRACUSE  CALAMITY.  201 

got  our  diplomas.     Death  is  to  be  graduation.     It  will  be 
comrnencel^ent-da3^ 

I  go  on  and  answer  the  question  of  my  text,  by  saying 
that  our  life  is  a  cohjiict.  If  you  have  never  tried  to  con- 
trol your  passions,  it' you  have  never  tried  to  subdue  your 
temper,  if  you  have  never  tried  to  rouse  yourselves  up  to  a 
better  manhood  or  womanhood,  you  do  not  know  what  I 
mean.  But  if  you  have  attempted  to  live  a  holy  life,  and 
to  be  better  and  to  do  better,  then  3^ou  sympathize  with 
the  Apostle  Paul  when  he  represented  our  life  on  earth  a 
war  with  the  world,  a  war  with  the  flesh,  a  war  with  the 
devil.  In  addition  to  the  struggle  you  have  within,  you 
have  had  a  thousand  outside  battles.  Sometimes  it  has 
been  against  poverty,  against  physical  distresses,  against 
bad  social  position,  against  an  unhappy  family  name.  In 
one  case  it  has  been  one  thing,  and  in  another  case  it  has 
been  another  thing ;  and  with  many  of  you,  up  to  this  point, 
it  has  been  a  hand-to-hand  fight;  and  so  it  will  be  even 
unto  the  end.  There  is  no  tent  for  peaceful  encampment 
but  the  grave.  Life  a  conflict;  so  the  Bible  announces 
it.     Life  a  conflict ;  so  your  own  experience  affirms  it. 

"Must  I  be  carried  to  the  skies 
On  flowery  beds  of  ease, 
While  others  fought  to  win  the  prize 
And  sailed  through  blood}'  seas  ?" 

Again  I  answer  the  question  of  the  text,  by  saying  that 
our  life  on  earth  is  a  'pro'pliecy.  By  that  I  mean  that  what 
we  are  in  this  world  we  will  be  in  the  world  to  come,  only 
on  a  larger  scale.  If  a  hero  here,  a  hero  there.  If  a  cheat 
here,  a  cheat  there.  If  a  Christian  here,  a  Christian  there. 
I  know  sometimes  there  are  marvelous  changes  in  the  last 

9* 


202  TEE  SYRACUSE  CALAMITY. 

hour  of  life,  and  the  dying  tlnef,  repenting,  goes  into  par- 
adise; but  that  is  the  exception.  The  probability  is,  my 
brethren,  that  what  you  are  in  the  present  time  you  will 
be  in  the  future — what  you  now  are  you  will  always  be, 
only  with  wider  range.  The  prophecy  is,  if  you  now  love 
that  which  is  unclean  and  unrighteous,  you  will  always 
love  it.  If  your  highest  joy  is  in  God,  and  your  chief  am- 
bition to  be  like  him,  you  arc  on  your  way  to  grandeurs 
that  no  dream  ever  was  bright  enough  to  depict.  I  judge 
from  the  blossoms  what  the  fruit  is  going  to  be  when  it 
sets,  ne  that  is  filthy  shall  be  filthy  still,  and  he  that  is 
holy  shall  be  holy  still.  On  banks  of  celestial  joy  walks 
the  consecrated  Alfred  Cookman.  In  dungeons  of  starless 
nio;ht  sits  John  Wilkes  Booth. 

I  reply  further  to  the  question  of  my  text,  "  What  is 
your  life?"  by  saying  that  our  life  is  a  preparation.  If  we 
are  going  on  a  long  journe}',  we  want  some  time  to  get 
ready.  We  must  have  extra  apparel.  We  want  our  guide- 
book. Our  comfort  on  the  journey  will  depend  very  much 
upon  what  we  start  with.  If  we  are  going  among  blood- 
thirsty savages,  we  must  take  knife  and  pistol.  God  has 
started  us  out  on  a  journey  that  will  have  no  terminus,  and, 
once  started,  we  never  come  back.  Are  we  getting  ready  ? 
Are  we  armed?  That  question  you  hear  to-day;  but  if  I 
should  utter  it  an  hour  from  now,  perhaps  you  might  not 
hear  it.  Life  is  a  preparation.  If  you  have  any  weapons 
to  sharpen,  you  had  better  sharpen  them  now.  If  you 
have  any  lamps  to  light,  you  had  better  light  them  now. 
When  death  once  shuts  the  door  of  the  sepulchre,  the  an- 
gel of  repentance  never  opens  it.  "As  the  tree  falleth,  so 
it  must  lie."  So  far  as  I  can  tell  your  case,  your  great 
need  is  to  get  rid  of  your  sins.     I  know  of  only  one  way 


THE  SYRACUSE  CALAMITY.  203 

to  do  it.  The  blood  of  Jesus  Christ  cleanseth  from  all  sin  ; 
and  though  you  may  this  morning  count  yourself  the  worst 
sinner,  you  may,  by  the  grace  of  God,  become  the  best 
saint.  "  Where  sin  abounded,  grace  shall  much  more 
abound." 

Again,  I  answer  this  question  of  my  text  by  saying  our 
life  is  a  great  uncertainty.  Nobody  steps  out  of  life  as  he 
expects  to.  Though  a  man  may  have  been  sick  for  thirty 
years,  he  is  surprised  at  last  when  he  goes.  And  though 
you  may  have  known  some  one  in  invalidism  for  a  quarter 
of  a  century,  when  you  hear  he  has  departed  you  throw 
up  your  hands,  and  say,  "Is  it  possible?"  We  can  make 
no  calculation  about  the  future.  The  world  is  full  of 
temptation  and  of  peril.  We  do  not  know  how  our  chil- 
dren will  turn  out.  We  do  not  know  what  we  ourselves 
might  be  tempted  to  do.  We  resolve  on  one  thing;  we 
do  another.  Our  associations  change.  Our  plans  change. 
Our  friends  change.  AVe  change.  And  life  is  such  a  com- 
plete uncertainty,  that  I  would  not  want  to  live  one  hour 
without  the  grace  of  God,  and  I  very  certainly  would  not 
want  to  die  without  it.  Blessed  be  God,  I  feel  under  my 
feet,  this  morning,  a  rock  firmer  than  the  everlasting  hills. 
That  keeps  me  hopeful  and  confident.  No  overbearing 
autocrat  sits  on  the  throne  of  the  universe.  My  father  is 
King;  and  the  mountains  may  depart,  and  the  hills  be  re- 
moved, but  his  goodness  and  his  kindness  and  his  grace, 
never,  never.  In  this  Christian  hope  I  have  indulged  for 
about  twenty-two  3'ears;  and  while  I  should  be  sorry  to 
know  that  there  is  anj'  one  in  this  house  more  unworthy' 
than  I  have  been,  still  I  can  tell  you  that  I  know  enough 
of  this  religion  to  recommend  it  everywhere  and  always, 
and  to  say  that  the  kindest,  the  gentlest,  the  grandest  friend 


204  THE  SYRACUSE  CALAMITY. 

a  man  ever  had  is  Jesus.  I  know  him.  I  believe  in  him. 
I  have  put  all  my  hope  on  him.  He  has  never  betrayed 
me.  He  will  never  betray  3'ou ;  and  the  best  thing  that 
you  can  do  now  is  this  moment  to  surrender  yourselves 
to  him  for  time  and  for  eternity.  But  do  not  take  my  ex- 
perience. It  is  comparatively  brief  There  are  some,  as 
you  look  over  the  audience,  who  have  frost  on  the  brow ; 
ask  them  what  they  think  of  Jesus.  Ask  them  whether 
be  ever  betrayed  them.  In  what  dark  hour?  By  what 
grave?  In  what  sickness?  Ah,  these  old  people  can  tell 
you  a  better  story  than  I  can  of  how  in  sickness  Christ  was 
their  best  physician;  and  how — when  they  came  to  give 
the  last  kiss  to  the  cold  lips  that  never  might  speak  again, 
and  to  stand  on  the  verge  of  a  grave  deep  enough  to  bury 
all — they  found  Jesus  the  Comforter;  and  that  this  morn- 
ing their  brightest  anticipation  of  the  future  is  the  presence 
of  him  whom,  having  not  seen,  we  love;  in  whom,  though 
now  we  see  him  not,  yet  believing,  we  rejoice  with  a  joy 
unspeakable  and  full  of  glory. 

I  thought  it  best  to  say  some  of  these  things  as  I  stand 
on  the  verge  of  my  summer  vacation,  for  I  will  be  absent 
from  you  until  September.  I  thought  I  would  give  my 
testimony  for  Jesus,  and  then  urge  you  to  look  after  this 
matter  immediately,  while  I  put  to  you  the  question  of  the 
text,  "What  is  your  life?" 

There  never  was  a  better  illustration  of  its  uncertainty 
than  we  find  in  the  disaster  of  our  sister  city.  Some  of 
you  think  of  Syracuse  only  as  a  depot  through  which  you 
pass  on  the  way  West.  Some  of  you  who  know  it  better 
know  it  to  be  one  of  the  most  industrious  and  busy  cities 
on  the  continent.  It  is  the  Golden  Gate  between  the  Bast 
and  the  West.     Through  its  heart  rolls  the  tide  of  a  na- 


THE  SYRACUSE  CALAMITY.  205 

tion's  life,  beating  hard  with  the  motion  of  the  great  lakes 
on  the  one  side,  and  the  ocean  on  the  other.  Its  conven- 
tion halls  filled  with  popular  assemblages  that  have  come 
there  to  decide  great  questions  of  philanthropy  or  politics. 
On  either  bank  of  this  rushing  stream  of  life  are  mansions, 
counting-rooms,  stores,  shops  —  hives  where  the  voices  of 
busy  men  hum  while  they  gather  in  the  honey  of  wealth. 
Feet  shuffling,  anvils  ringing,  bridges  rumbling,  printing- 
presses  rattling.  Illumined  lyceum,  and  literary  club, 
and  churches  lighted  for  week-night  services,  and  houses 
swarming  with  fashionable  levee.  But  it  does  not  appear 
to  me  especially  in  that  light.  When  I  think  of  Syra- 
cuse, I  think  of  it  as  the  place  of  beautiful  homes,  and 
warm  sympathies,  and  ardent  friendships,  and  blessed  asso- 
ciations. Among  the  happiest  years  of  my  ministry  were 
those  spent  in  that  city,  and  the  sorrow  comes  from  there 
to  my  heart  to-day.  The  young  pastor  of  that  church, 
the  son  of  the  leading  minister  of  his  denomination  in  this 
country,  had  only  a  few  months  ago  gone  to  his  new  field ; 
and  last  Tuesday  night,  surrounded  by  his  congregation, 
in  a  merry  festival,  every  thing  going  pleasantly  and  prof- 
itably on,  with  a  sudden  crash  that  I  have  not  the  heart 
to  depict,  many  were  ushered  into  the  eternal  world,  and 
more  were  taken  out  half  dead.  Awful  wreck  of  youth 
and  old  age;  bride  and  bridegroom;  the  distinguished 
and  the  unknown.  That  city  to-day  is  frantic  with  grief, 
and  already  the  long  processions  have  gone  out  to  Oak- 
lands,  that  beautiful  cemetery  where  I  have  helped  to  put 
down  some  of  my  very  best  fi-icnds.  It  is  a  good  place 
to  sleep  in.  0  men  and  women  who  know  how  to  pray, 
pray  for  those  broken  hearts!  O  men  and  women  who 
have  had  troubles  of  your  own,  cry  unto  God  for  that 


206  THE  SYRACUSE  CALAMITY. 

groaning  city — for  companions  bereft,  for  parents  sudden- 
\y  made  childless,  for  homes  where  father  and  mother  will 
never  come,  for  the  pastor  of  that  church,  that  he  may 
come  forth  from  this  anguish  of  soul  newly  set  apart  and 
ordained  by  the  "laying  on  of  hands"  of  this  calamity! 
Issuing  from  such  a  scene,  he  will  be  mightily  in  earnest 
now,  and  his  cry  will  ring  through  the  city,  "  What  is 
your  life?"  But  while  we  pray  for  them,  let  us  also  pray 
for  ourselves.  Be  ye  also  ready.  Risk  not  one  moment 
away  from  Christ.  For  all  the  unregenerate  and  unpar- 
doned there  is  not  one  hour  of  safety  between  this  and  the 
judgment-day,  and  after  that  there  will  be  a  tumbling- in 
of  eternal  calamities.  Your  first,  your  second,  your  hun- 
dredth, your  thousandth,  your  last  want  is  a  heart  changed 
by  the  almighty  grace  of  God.  Oh!  get  it  now.  Bow 
your  head  on  the  back  of  the  seat  in  front  of  you,  and  be 
quick  in  surrendering  yourselves  to  Jesus,  He  is  mighty 
to  save,  and  he  would  just  as  lief  do  it  now  as  any  other 
time.  I  do  not  think  that  cowardice  is  a  characteristic  of 
my  nature,  and  yet  I  tell  you  plainly  that  I  would  not  dare 
to  walk  down  the  street  or  cross  the  ferry  were  it  not  for  a 
hope  in  Christ  that  whatever  happens  to  my  body  my  im- 
mortal soul  shall  go  free.  Why,  the  air  is  so  full  of  perils, 
flying  this  way,  flying  that,  flying  before  your  face,  flying 
behind  your  back,  flying  within,  flying  without,  that  we 
need  God's  promises  hovering  over  us  like  a  canopy,  and 
marshaled  all  around  us  like  an  armed  host. 

Standing  as  we  do  at  the  beginning  of  a  season  when 
there  is  more  sickness  than  at  other  times  in  the  same  year, 
and  wdien  many  of  us  will  be  exposed  to  additional  perils 
by  travel,  I  thought  it  this  morning  better  for  me  to  cry 
out  with  an  emphasis  deepened  by  the  calamity  at  the 


THE  SYRACUSE  CALAMITY.  207 

West,  asking  you,  ""What  is  your  life?"  Is  it  a  test? 
Make  a  successful  experiment.  Is  it  an  apprenticeship? 
Make  it  an  industrious  one.  Is  it  a  conflict?  Fight  a 
brave  fight.  Is  it  a  prophecy?  Let  it  foretell  glorious 
results.  Is  it  a  preparation?  Make  sure  work.  Is  it  an 
uncertainty?  Get  a  Divine  insurance.  You  say,  "I  will 
do  this,  I  will  do  that.  I  will  go  into  this  citj^,  and  I  will 
get  gain."  Whereas  you  know  not  what  shall  be  on  the 
morrow;  for  "What  is  your  life?"  "It  is  even  as  a  va- 
por that  appeareth  for  a  little  season,  and  then  vanisheth 
away." 


208  THINGS  WE  NEVER  GET  OVER, 


THINGS  WE  NEVER  GET  OYER 

"All  manner  of  sin  and  blasphemy  shall  be  forgiven  unto  men  :  but  the 
blasphemy  against  the  Holy  Ghost  shall  not  be  forgiven  unto  men.  And 
whosoever  speaketh  a  word  against  the  Son  of  man,  it  shall  be  forgiven  him  : 
but  whosoever  speaketh  against  the  Holy  Ghost,  it  shall  not  be  forgiven  him, 
neither  in  this  world,  neither  in  the  world  to  come." — Mattheio  xii.,  31,  32. 

"  He  found  no  place  of  repentance,  though  he  sought  it  carefully  with 
tears." — Hebreivs  xii.,  17. 

LET  it  be  understood  at  the  outset  that  the  Protestant 
pulpit  has  no  revelation  not  given  to  the  Protestant 
pew.  The  minister  of  Christ  has  no  right  to  lord  it  over 
the  consciences  of  men.  When  we  preach,  we  do  not  ut- 
ter edicts;  we  only  offer  opinions.  Let  the  old  Mother 
of  Harlots  from  the  Vatican  issue  the  fiat  that  makes  the 
people  bow  down  into  the  dust ;  but  in  this  land,  and  in 
this  age,  where  King  James's  translation  is  in  almost  every 
hand  and  in  almost  every  house,  let  every  man  understand 
that  he  has  a  right,  equally  with  others,  to  interpret  the 
Word  of  God  for  himself,  asking  only  Divine  illumination. 

As  sometimes  you  gather  the  whole  family  around  the 
evening  stand  to  hear  some  book  read,  so  to-night  we 
gather  —  a  great  Christian  family  group  —  to  study  this 
text ;  and  now  may  one  and  the  same  Lamp  cast  its  glow 
on  all  the  circle ! 

You  see  from  the  first  passage  that  I  read  that  there  is 
a  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost  for  which  a  man  is  never 
pardoned.  Once  having  committed  it,  he  is  bound  hand 
and  foot  for  the  dungeons  of  despair.     Sermons  may  be 


THINGS   WE  NEVER  GET  OYER.  209 

preached  to  him,  songs  may  be  sung  to  hirn,  pra3-ers  may 
be  offered  in  his  behalf;  but  all  to  no  purpose.  lie  is  a 
captive  for  this  world,  and  a  captive  for  the  world  that  is 
to  come.  Do  you  suppose  that  there  is  any  one  in  this 
house  to-night  that  has  committed  that  sin?  All  sins  are 
against  the  Holy  Ghost;  but  my  text  speaks  of  one  espe- 
cially. It  is  very  clear  to  my  own  mind  that  the  sin 
against  the  Holy  Ghost  was  the  ascribing  of  the  works  of 
the  Spirit  to  the  agency  of  the  devil  in  the  time  of  the  apos- 
tles. Indeed,  the  Bible  distinctly  tells  us  that.  In  other 
words,  if  a  man  had  sight  given  to  him,  or  if  another  was 
raised  from  the  dead,  and  some  one  standing  there  should 
say,  "  This  man  got  his  sight  by  Satanic  power ;  the  Holy 
Spirit  did  not  do  this;  Beelzebub  accomplished  it;"  or, 
*'  This  man  raised  from  the  dead  was  raised  by  Satanic  in- 
fluence," the  man  who  said  that  dropped  down  under  the 
curse  of  the  text,  and  had  committed  the  fatal  sin  against 
the  Holy  Ghost. 

Now,  I  do  not  think  it  is  possible  in  this  day  to  com- 
mit that  sin.  I  think  it  was  possible  only  in  apostolic 
times.  But  it  is  a  very  terrible  thing  ever  to  say  any 
thing  against  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  it  is  a  marked  fact  that 
our  race  have  been  marvelously  kept  back  from  that  pro- 
fanity. You  hear  a  man  swear  by  the  name  of  the  Eternal 
God,  and  by  the  name  of  Jesus  Clirist,  but  you  never 
heard  a  man  swear  by  the  name  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  There 
are  those  in  this  house  who  fear  they  are  guilty  of  the 
unpardonable  sin.  Have  you  such  anxiety?  Then  I  have 
to  tell  you  positively  that  you  have  not  committed  that 
sin,  because  the  very  anxiety  is  a  result  of  the  movement 
of  the  gracious  Spirit,  and  3'our  anxiety  is  proof  pos- 
itive, as  certainly  as  any  thing  that  can  be  demonstrated 


210  THINGS   WE  NEVER  GET  OVER. 

in  mathematics,  that  you  have  not  committed  the  sin  tliat 
I  have  been  speaking  of.  I  can  look  off  upon  this  audi- 
ence and  feel  that  there  is  salvation  for  all.  It  is  not  like 
when  they  put  out  with  those  life-boats  from  the  Loch  Earn 
for  the  Ville  du  Havre.  They  knew  there  was  not  room 
for  all  the  passengers,  but  they  were  going  to  do  as  well 
as  they  could.  But  to-night  we  man  the  life-boat  of  the 
Gospel,  and  we  cry  out  over  the  sea,  "  Room  for  all !" 
Oh  that  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  would,  this  hour,  bring  you 
all  out  of  the  flood  of  sin,  and  plant  you  on  the  deck  of 
this  glorious  old  Gospel  craft ! 

But  while  I  have  said  I  do  not  think  it  is  possible 
for  us  to  commit  the  particular  sin  spoken  of  in  the 
first  text,  I  have  by  reason  of  the  second  text  to  call 
your  attention  to  the  fact  that  there  are  sins  which, 
though  they  may  be  pardoned,  are  in  some  respects  ir- 
revocable ;  and  you  can  find  no  place  for  repentance, 
though  you  seek  it  carefully  with  tears.  Esau  had  a  birth- 
right given  him.  In  olden  times  it  meant  not  only  tem- 
poral but  spiritual  blessing.  One  day  Esau  took  this  birth- 
right and  traded  it  off  for  something  to  eat.  Oh,  the  folly  ! 
But  let  us  not  be  too  severe  upon  him,  for  some  of  us  have 
committed  the  same  folly.  After  he  had  made  the  trade, 
lie  wanted  to  get  it  back.  Just  as  though  you  to-morrow 
morning  should  take  all  your  notes  and  bonds  and  Gov- 
ernment securities,  and  should  go  into  a  restaurant,  and  in 
a  fit  of  recklessness  and  hunger  throw  all  those  securities 
on  the  counter  and  ask  for  a  plate  of  food,  making  that  ex- 
change. This  was  the  one  Esau  made.  He  sold  his  birth- 
right for  a  mess  of  pottage,  and  he  was  very  sorry  about  it 
afterward ;  but  "  he  found  no  place  for  repentance,  though 
he  sought  it  carefully  with  tears." 


THINGS  WE  NEVER  GET  OVER.  211 

There  is  an  impression  in  almost  every  man's  mind  that 
somewhere  in  the  future  there  will  be  a  chance  where  he 
can  correct  all  his  mistakes.  Live  as  we  may,  if  wo  only 
repent  in  time,  God  will  forgive  ns,  and  then  all  will  be  as 
well  as  though  we  had  never  committed  sin.  My  discourse 
shall  come  in  collision  with  that  theory.  I  shall  show  you, 
my  friends,  as  God  will  help  me,  that  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  unsuccessful  repentance;  that  there  are  things  done 
wrong  that  always  stay  wrong,  and  for  thein  you  may 
seek  some  place  of  repentance,  and  seek  it  carefullj,  but 
never  find  it. 

Belonging  to  this  class  of  irrevocable  mistakes  is  the  fol- 
In  of  a  misspent  youth.  "We  may  look  back  to  our  college 
days,  and  think  how  we  neglected  chemistrj^,  or  geology, 
or  botany,  or  mathematics.  We  may  be  sorry  about  it  all 
our  days.  Can  we  ever  get  the  discipline  or  the  advan- 
tage that  we  would  have  had  had  we  attended  to  those 
duties  in  early  life?  A  man  wakes  up  at  forty  years  of 
age  and  finds  that  his  youth  has  been  wasted,  and  he 
strives  to  get  back  his  early  advantages.  Does  he  get 
them  back — the  days  of  boyhood,  the  days  in  college,  the 
days  under  his  father's  roof?  "  Oh,"  he  sa3^s,  "  if  I  could 
only  get  those  times  back  again,  how  I  would  improve 
them!"  My  brother,  you  will  never  get  them  back. 
They  are  gone,  gone.  You  ma}'-  be  very  sorry  about  it, 
and  God  may  forgive,  so  that  you  may  at  last  reach  heav- 
en;  but  you  will  never  get  over  some  of  the  mishaps  that 
have  come  to  your  soul  as  a  result  of  your  neglect  of  ear- 
ly dut3^  You  may  try  to  undo  it;  you  can  not  undo  it. 
When  you  had  a  boy's  arms,  and  a  boy's  eyes,  and  a  boy's 
heart,  you  ought  to  have  attended  to  those  things.  A 
man  sa3^s,  at  fifty  years  of  age,  "  I  do  wish  I  could  get  over 


212  THINGS   WE  NEVER  GET  OVER. 

these  habits  of  indolence."  AVhen  did  you  get  them  ?  At 
twenty  or  twenty-five  years  of  age.  You  can  not  shake 
them  off.  They  will  hang  to  you  to  the  very  day  of  your 
death.  If  a  young  man  through  a  long  course  of  evil  con- 
duct undermines  his  physical  health,  and  then  repents  of 
it  in  after-life,  the  Lord  may  pardon  him ;  but  that  does 
not  bring  back  good  physical  condition.  I  said  to  a  min- 
ister of  the  Gospel,  last  Sabbath  night,  at  the  close  of  the 
service,  "  Where  are  you  preaching  now?"  "Oh,"  he 
says,  "I  am  not  preaching.  I  am  suftering  from  the  phys- 
ical effects  of  early  sin.  I  can't  preach  now;  I  am  sick." 
A  consecrated  man  he  now  is,  and  he  mourns  bitterly  over 
early  sins;  but  that  does  not  arrest  their  bodily  effects. 

The  simple  fiict  is,  that  men  and  women  often  take  twen- 
ty years  of  their  life  to  build  up  influences  that  require  all 
the  rest  of  their  life  to  break  down.  Talk  about  a  man 
beginning  life  when  he  is  twenty-one  years  of  age;  talk 
about  a  woman  beginning  life  when  she  is  eighteen  years 
of  age!  Ah,  no!  In  many  respects  that  is  the  time  they 
close  life.  In  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  all  the  questions  of 
eternity  are  decided  before  that.  Talk  about  a  majority 
of  men  getting  their  fortunes  between  thirty  and  fort}^  I 
They  get  or  lose  fortunes  between  ten  and  twenty.  When 
you  tell  me  that  a  man  is  just  beginning  life,  I  tell  30U  he 
is  just  closing  it.  The  next  fifty  years  will  not  be  of  as 
much  importance  to  him  as  the  first  twenty. 

Now,  why  do  I  say  this  ?  Is  it  for  the  annoyance  of  those 
who  have  only  a  baleful  retrospection  ?  You  kno.w  that  is 
not  my  way.  I  say  it  for  the  benefit  of  these  young  men  and 
women.  I  want  them  to  understand  that  eternity  is  wrap- 
ped up  in  this  hour;  that  the  sins  of  youth  we  never  get 
over;  that  you  are  now  fashioning  the  mold  in  which  your 


THIXGS  WE  NEVER  GET  OVER.  213 

great  future  is  to  run  ;  that  a  minute,  instead  of  being  six- 
ty seconds  long,  is  made  up  of  everlasting  ages.  You  see 
what  dignity  and  importance  this  gives  to  the  life  of  all 
our  young  folks.  Why,  in  the  light  of  this  subject  life  is 
not  something  to  be  frittered  away,  not  something  to  be 
smirked  about,  not  something  to  be  danced  out,  but  some- 
thing to  be  weighed  in  the  balances  of  eternity.  Oh,  young 
man  1  the  sin  of  last  night,  the  sin  of  to-night,  the  sin  of  to- 
morrow, will  reach  over  ten  thousand  years,  ay,  over  the 
great  and  unending  eternity.  You  may,  after  a  while, 
say,  "I  am  very  sorry.  Now  I  have  got  to  be  thirty  or  forty 
years  of  age,  and  I  do  wish  I  had  never  committed  those 
sins."  What  does  that  amount  to?  God  may  pardon  you; 
but  undo  those  things  you  never  will,  you  never  can. 

In  this  same  category  of  irrevocable  mistakes  I  put  all 
^fm'ental  neglect  We  begin  the  education  of  our  children 
too  late.  By  the  time  they  get  to  be  ten  or  fifteen  we 
wake  up  to  our  mistakes,  and  try  to  eradicate  this  bad  hab- 
it, and  change  that ;  but  it  is  too  late.  That  parent  who 
omits,  in  the  first  ten  years  of  the  child's  life,  to  make  an 
eternal  impression  for  Christ,  never  makes  it.  The  child 
will  probably  go  on  with  all  the  disadvantages,  which 
might  have  been  avoided  by  parental  faithfulness.  Now 
you  see  what  a  mistake  that  father  or  mother  makes  who 
puts  off  to  late  life  adherence  to  Christ.  Here  is  a  man 
who  at  fifty  years  of  age  sa3'S  to  a^ou,  "I  must  be  a  Chris- 
tian ;"  and  he  yields  his  heart  to  God,  and  sits  in  the  house 
of  prayer  to-night  a  Cliristian.  None  of  us  can  doubt  it. 
He  goes  home,  and  he  says,  "Ilerc  at  fifty  j^ears  of  age  I 
have  given  my  heart  to  the  Saviour.  Now  I  must  estab- 
lish a  family  altar."  What?  Where  are  your  children 
now?     One  in  Boston;  another  in  Cincinnati;  another  in 


214  THINGS   WE  NEVER  GET  OYER. 

New  Orleans;  and  3'ou,  my  brother,  at  your  fiftieth  year 
going  to  establish  your  family  altar.  Very  well ;  better 
late  than  never;  but  alas,  alas  that  you  did  not  do  it 
twenty-five  years  ago! 

When  I  was  in  Cbamouni,  Switzerland,  I  saw  in  the  win- 
dow of  one  of  the  shops  a  picture  that  impressed  my  mind 
very  much.  It  was  a  picture  of  an  accident  that  occurred 
on  the  side  of  one  of  the  Swiss  mountains.  A  company 
of  travelers,  with  guides,  went  up  some  very  steep  places — 
places  which  but  few  travelers  attempted  to  go  up.  They 
were,  as  all  travelers  are  there,  fastened  together  with 
cords  at  the  waist,  so  that  if  one  slipped,  the  rope  would 
hold  him — the  rope  fastened  to  the  others.  Passing  along 
the  most  dangerous  point,  one  of  the  guides  slipped,  and 
they  all  started  down  the  precipice ;  but  after  a  while,  one 
more  muscular  than  the  rest  struck  his  heels  into  the  ice 
and  stopped ;  but  the  rope  broke,  and  down,  hundreds  and 
thousands  of  feet,  the  rest  went.  And  so  I  see  whole  fam- 
ilies bound  together  by  ties  of  affection,  and  in  many  cases 
walking  on  slippery  places  of  worldliness  and  sin.  The 
father  knows  it,  and  the  mother  knows  it,  and  they  are 
bound  all  together.  After  a  while  they  begin  to  slide 
down  steeper  and  steeper,  and  the  father  becomes  alarmed, 
and  he  stops,  planting  his  feet  on  the  "Eock  of  Ages." 
He  stops,  but  the  rope  breaks,  and  those  who  were  once 
tied  fast  to  him  by  moral  and  spiritual  influences  go  over 
the  precipice.  Oh,  there  is  such  a  thing  as  coming  to 
Christ  soon  enough  to  save  ourselves,  but  not  soon  enough 
to  save  others! 

now  many  parents  wake  up  in  the  latter  part  of  life 
to  find  out  the  mistake!  The  parent  says,  "I  have  been 
too  lenient,"  or,  "I  have  been  too  severe  in  the  discipline 


THINGS  ^YE  NEVER  GET  OVER.  215 

of  my  children.  If  I  had  the  little  ones  around  me  again, 
how  different  I  would  do!"  You  will  never  have  them 
around  again.  The  work  is  done,  the  bent  to  the  char- 
acter is  given,  the  eternity  is  decided.  I  say  this  to 
young  parents — those  who  are  twenty -five  or  thirty  or 
thirty- five  years  of  age — have  the  family  altar  to-night. 
How  do  you  suppose  that  father  felt  as  he  leaned  over  the 
couch  of  his  dying  child,  and  the  expiring  son  said  to  him, 
"  Father,  you  have  been  very  good  to  me.  You  have 
given  me  a  fine  education,  and  you  have  placed  me  in  a 
fine  social  position ;  you  have  done  every  thing  for  me  in 
a  worldly  sense;  but,  father,  you  never  told  me  how  to 
die.     Now  I  am  dying,  and  I  am  lost!" 

In  this  categoiy  of  irrevocable  mistakes  I  place,  also,  the 
'>i'nKijfJ]if{\^ps  fln-np.  ih£..cLL^cLYi£fl.  When  I  was  a  bo}^,  my 
mother  used  to  say  to  me  sometimes,  "De  Witt,  you  will 
be  sorry  for  that  when  I  am  gone."  And  I  remember  just 
how  she  looked,  sitting  there,  with  cap  and  spectacles,  and 
the  old  Bible  in  her  lap;  and  she  never  said  a  truer  thing 
than  that,  for  I  have  often  been  sorry  since.  While  we  have 
our  friends  with  us,  we  say  unguarded  things  that  wound 
the  feelings  of  those  to  whom  we  ought  to  give  nothing 
but  kindness.  Perhaps  the  parent,  without  inquiring  into 
the  matter,  boxes  the  child's  ears.  The  little  one,  who  has 
fallen  in  the  street,  comes  in  covered  with  dust,  and,  as 
though  the  first  disaster  were  not  enough,  she  whips  it. 
After  a  while  the  child  is  taken,  or  the  parent  is  taken,  or 
the  companion  is  taken,  and  those  who  are  left  say,  "  Oh, 
if  we  could  only  get  back  those  unkind  words,  those  un- 
kind deeds;  if  we  could  only  recall  them!"  But  3'ou  can 
not  get  them  back.  You  might  bow  down  over  the  grave 
of  that  loved  one,  and  cry  and  cry  and  cry.     The  white 


216  THINGS  WE  NEVER  GET  OVER. 

lips  would  make  no  answer.  The  stars  shall  be  plucked 
out  of  their  sockets,  but  these  influences  shall  not  be  torn 
away.  The  world  shall  die,  but  there  are  some  wrongs 
immortal.  The  moral  of  which  is,  take  care  of  your 
friends  while  you  have  them ;  spare  the  scolding ;  be 
economical  of  the  satire;  shut  up  in  a  dark  cave,  from 
which  they  shall  never  swarm  forth,  all  the  words  that 
have  a  sting  in  them.  You  will  wish  j^ou  had  some  day — 
NQV^  soon  you  will — perhaps  to-morrow.  Oh  yes.  While 
with  a  firm  hand  you  administer  parental  discipline,  also 
administer  it  very  gentl}^,  lest  some  day  there  be  a  little 
slab  in  Greenwood,  and  on  it  chiseled  "Our  Willie,"  or 
"Our  Charlie;"  and  though  j'ou  bow  down  prone  in  the 
grave,  and  seek  a  place  of  repentance,  and  seek  it  care- 
fully with  tears,  you  can  not  find  it. 

There  is  another  sin  that  I  place  in  the  class  of  irrevo- 
cable mistakes,  and  that  is  lQst_oppQii2jjiities~of-^Un§-goo^. 
I  never  come  to  a  Saturday  night  but  I  can  see  during  that 
week  that  I  have  missed  opportunities  of  getting  good.  I 
never  come  to  my  birthday  but  I  can  see  that  I  have 
wasted  many  chances  of  getting  better.  I  never  go  home 
on  Sabbath  from  the  discussion  of  a  religious  theme  with- 
out feeling  that  I  might  have  done  it  in  a  more  successful 
way.  How  is  it  with  you  ?  If  you  take  a  certain  number 
of  bushels  of  wheat  and  scatter  them  over  a  certain  num- 
ber of  acres  of  land,  you  expect  a  harvest  in  proportion  to 
the  amount  of  seed  scattered.  And  I  ask  you  to-night, 
have  the  sheaves  of  moral  and  spiritual  harvest  corre- 
sponded with  the  advantages  given?  How  has  it  been 
with  you?  You  may  make  resolutions  for  the  future,  but 
past  opportunities  are  gone.  In  the  long  procession  of 
future  years  all  those  past  moments  will  march ;  but  the 


THINGS    WE  NEVER   GET  OVER.  217 

arcli.ingel's  trumpet  that  wakes  the  dead  will  not  wake  up 
for  you  one  of  those  privileges.  Esau  has  sold  his  birth- 
right, and  there  is  not  wealth  enough  in  the  treasure- 
houses  of  heaven  to  buy  it  baek  again.  What  does  that 
mean?  It  means  that  if  you  are  going  to  get  any  advan- 
tage out  of  this  Sabbath-day,  you  will  have  to  get  it  before 
the  hand  wheels  around  on  the  dock  to  twelve  to-night. 
It  means  that  every  moment  of  our  life  has  two  wings,  and 
that  it  does  not  fly,  like  a  hawk,  in  circles,  but  in  a  straight 
line  from  eternity  to  eternity.  It  means  that  though  other 
chariots  may  break  down,  or  drag  heavily,  this  one  never 
drops  the  brake,  and  never  ceases  to  run.  It  means  that 
while  at  other  feasts  the  cup  may  be  jiassed  to  us  and  we 
may  reject  it,  and  3'et  after  a  while  take  it,  the  cup-bearers 
to  this  feast  never  give  us  but  one  chance  at  the  chalice, 
and,  rejecting  that,  we  shall  "find  no  place  for  repentance, 
though  we  seek  it  carefully  with  tears." 

There  is  one  more  class  of  sins  that  I  put  in  this  cate- 
gory of  irrevocable  sins,  and  that  is  lost  opportunities  of 
xisefulness^ .  Your  business  partner  is  a  proud  man.  In 
ordinary  circumstances,  say  to  him,  "Believe  in  Christ," 
and  he  will  say,  "You  mind  your  business,  and  I'll  mind 
mine."  But  there  has  been  affliction  in  the  household. 
His  heart  is  tender.  lie  is  looking  around  for  sympathy 
and  solace.  Now  is  your  time.  Speak,  speak,  or  forever 
hold  your  peace.  There  is  a  time  in  fiirm-life  when  you 
I)lant  the  corn  and  when  you  sow  the  seed.  Let  that  go 
by,  and  the  farmer  will  wring  his  hands  while  other  hus- 
bandmen are  gathering  in  the  sheaves.  You  are  in  a  re- 
ligious meeting,  and  there  is  an  opportunity  for  you  to 
speak  a  word  for  Christ.  You  say,  "I  must  do  it."  Your 
cneek  flushes  with  embarrassment.      You   rise  half  way, 

10 


218  THINGS  WE  NEVER  GET  OYER. 

but  you  cower  before  men  whose  breath  is  in  their  nostrils, 
and  you  sag  back,  and  the  opportunity  is  gone,  and  all 
eternity  will  feel  the  effect  of  your  silence.  Try  to  get 
back  that  opportunity!  You  can  not  find  it.  You  might 
as  well  try  to  find  the  fleece  that  Gideon  watched,  or  take 
in  your  hand  the  dew  that  came  down  on  the  locks  of  the 
Bethlehem  shepherds,  or  to  find  the  plume  of  the  first  rob- 
in that  went  across  paradise.  It  is  gone;  it  is  gone  for- 
ever. When  an  opportunity  for  personal  repentance  or  of 
doing  good  passes  away, you  may  hunt  for  it;  you  can  not 
find  it.  You  may  fish  for  it;  it  will  not  take  the  hook. 
You  may  dig  for  it;  you  can  not  bring  it  up.  Remember 
that  there  are  wrongs  and  sins  that  can  never  be  corrected ; 
that  our  privileges  fly  not  in  circles,  but  in  a  straight  line; 
that  the  lightnings  have  not  as  swift  feet  as  our  privileges 
when  they  are  gone,  and  let  an  opportunity  of  salvation  go 
by  us  an  inch,  the  one  hundredth  part  of  an  inch,  the  thou- 
sandth part  of  an  inch,  the  millionth  part  of  an  inch,  and  no 
man  can  overtake  it.  Fire-winged  seraphim  can  not  come 
up  with  it.     The  eternal  God  himself  can  not  catch  it. 

I  stand  before  those  who  have  a  glorious  birthright. 
Esau's  was  not  so  rich  as  yours.  Sell  it  once,  and  you  sell 
it  forever.  The  world  wants  to  buy  it  Satan  wants  to 
buy  it.  Listen  for  a  moment  to  these  brilliant  offers,  and 
it  is  gone. 

Why  do  I  tell  you  these  truths?  I  have  stood  before 
you  year  after  year  telling  you  these  things.  Some  have 
yielded  their  hearts  to  God,  and  a  glorious  crop  of  souls 
has  been  reaped;  but  this  audience  of  immortal  men  and 
women,  are  they  all  prepared  for  the  great  future  ?  I  could 
stand  here  and  play  a  sweeter  harp.  I  could  talk  of  the 
gates  of  pearl,  and  the  walls  of  precious  stones,  and  the 


THIXGS    WB  NKVEli  GET  OVER.  219 

crown.s  of  liglit.  What  is  llie  use  of  talking  of  tliose  things 
to  those  who  liave  no  preparation  for  that  kind,  and  who 
are  on  the  wrong  road? 

I  remember  the  story  of  the  lad  on  the  Arctic  some  years 
ago — the  lad  Stewart  Holland.  A  vessel  crushed  into  the 
Arctic  in  the  time  of  a  fog,  and  it  was  found  that  the  ship 
must  go  down.  Some  of  the  passengers  got  off  in  the  life- 
boats, some  got  off  on  rafts;  but  three  hundred  went  to 
the  bottom.  During  all  those  hours  of  calamity,  Stewart 
Holland  stood  at  the  signal-gun,  and  it  sounded  across  the 
sea,  boom!  boom!  The  helmsman  forsook  his  place,  the 
engineer  was  gone,  and  some  fainted  and  some  prayed  and 
some  blasphemed,  and  the  powder  was  gone,  and  they 
could  no  more  set  off  the  signal-gun.  The  lad  broke  in 
the  magazine  and  brought  out  more  powder,  and  again  the 
gun  boomed  over  the  sea.  Oh,  my  friends,  I  behold  many 
of  you  in  immortal  peril !  Sickness  will  come  down  after  a 
while  upon  you,  death  will  come  upon  you,  judgment  will 
come  upon  j^ou,  eternity  will  come  upon  you.  Some,  hav- 
ing taken  the  warning,  have  gone  off  in  the  life-boat,  and 
they  are  safe;  but  others  are  not  making  any  attempt  to 
escape.  So  I  stand  at  this  signal-gun  of  the  Gospel,  sound- 
ing the  alarm.  Beware!  beware!  "Now  is  tlie  accepted 
time;  now  is  the  day  of  salv\ation."  The  wrath  to  come! 
The  wrath  to  come!  Boom!  Boom!  Fly  to  the  hope 
of  the  Gospel.  Jesus  waits.  He  stretches  out  his  arms  to 
all  this  auditory,  and  cries  to-night  with  a  tenderness  I  have 
never  heard  before,  "Come  unto  me,  all  ye  who  are  weary 
and  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest."  That  is  what  you 
want,  sinful,  tempted,  bruised,  and  dying  soul  !  May  the 
Lord  help  yon  to  accept  the  mercy  and  the  solace  and  the 
salvation  of  the  Gospel !    Hear  it,  that  your  soul  may  live ! 


220  im:  BROKEX-up  funeral. 


THE  BROKEN-UP  FUNERAL. 

"Now  when  he  came  nigh  to  the  gate  of  tlie  city,  hehold,  there  was  a 
dead  man  carried  out,  the  only  son  of  his  mother,  and  she  was  a  widow :  and 
much  people  of  the  city  was  with  her.  And  when  tlie  Lord  saw  her,  he  had 
compassion  on  her,  and  said  unto  her,  Weep  not.  And  he  came  and  touched 
tlie  bier :  and  they  that  bare  him  stood  still.  And  he  said,  Young  man,  I 
say  unto  thee,  Arise.  And  he  that  was  dead  sat  up,  and  began  to  speak. 
And  he  delivered  him  to  his  mother." — Lulce  vii.,  12-15. 

THE  text  calls  us  to  stand  at  the  gate  of  the  city  of 
Nain.  The  streets  are  a-rush  with  business  and  gay- 
et}'',  and  the  ear  is  deafened  with  the  hammers  of  mecha- 
nism and  the  wheels  of  traffic.  Work,  with  its  thousand 
arms  and  thousand  eyes  and  thousand  feet,  fills  all  the 
street,  when  suddenly  the  crowd  parts,  and  a  funeral  passes. 
Between  the  wheels  of  work  and  pleasure  there  comes  a 
long  procession  of  mourning  people.  Who  is  it?  A  trifler 
says,  "Oh,  it  is  nothing  but  a  funeral.  It  may  have  come 
up  from  the  hospital  of  the  city,  or  the  almshouse,  or  some 
low  place  of  the  town ;"  but  not  so  saj^^s  the  serious  ob- 
server. There  are  so  many  evidences  of  tired  bereave- 
ment that  we  know  at  the  first  glance  some  one  has  been 
taken  away  greatly  beloved  ;  and  to  our  inquirj^,  "  Who  is 
this  that  is  carried  out  with  so  man}'-  offices  of  kindness 
and  affifction  ?"  the  reply  comes,  "  The  only  son  of  his 
mother,  and  she  a  widow."  Stand  back,  and  let  the  pro- 
cession pass  out !  Hush  all  the  voices  of  mirth  and  pleas- 
ure I  Let  every  head  be  uncovered  !  Weep  with  this  pass- 
ing procession ;  and  let  it  be  told  through  all  the  market- 


THE  BROKSy-UP  FUyERAl  221 

places  find  bazaars  of  Nain,  tbat  in  Galilee  to-day  tbe  sep- 
ulchre hath  gathered  to  itself  "  the  only  son  of  his  mother, 
and  she  a  widow." 

There  are  two  or  three  things  that,  in  my  mind,  give 
especial  pathos  to  this  scene.  The  fii'st  is,  he  was  a  young 
man  that  was  being  carried  out.  To  the  aged,  death  be- 
comes beautiful.  The  old  man  halts  and  pants  along  the 
road,  where  once  he  bounded  like  the  roe.  From  the  midst 
of  immedicable  ailments  and  sorrows,  he  cries  out,  "How 
long,  O  Lord,  how  long?"  Foot-sore  and  hardly  bestead 
on  the  hot  journey,  he  wants  to  get  home.  He  sits  in  the 
church,  and  sings,  with  a  very  tremulous  voice,  some  tune 
he  sung  forty  years  ago,  and  longs  to  join  the  better  as- 
semblage of  the  one  hundred  and  forty  and  four  thousand, 
and  the  thousands  of  thousands  who  have  passed  the  flood. 
How  sweetly  he  sleeps  the  last  sleep !  Push  back  the  white 
locks  from  the  wrinkled  temples;  they  will  never  ache  again. 
Fold  the  hands  over  the  still  heart;  they  will  never  toil  again. 
Close  gently  the  eyes;  they  will  never  weep  again. 

But  this  man  that  I  am  speaking  of  was  a  j'oung  man. 
He  was  just  putting  on  the  armor  of  life,  and  he  was  exult- 
ing to  think  how  his  sturdy  blows  would  ring  out  above 
the  clangor  of  the  battle.  1  suppose  he  had  a  young  man's 
hopes,  a  young  man's  amb\tion,  and  a  young  man's  cour- 
age. He  said,  "If  I  live  many  years,  I  will  feed  the  hun- 
gry and  clothe  the  naked.  In  this  city  of  Nain,  where 
there  are  so  many  bad  3^oung  men,  I  will  be  sober,  and 
honest,  and  pure,  and  magnanimous,  and  my  mother  shall 
never  be  ashamed  of  me."  But  all  these  prospects  are 
blasted  in  one  hour.  There  he  passes  lifeless  in  the  pro- 
cession. Behold  all  that  is  left  on  earth  of  the  high-hearted 
young  man  of  the  city  of  Nain. 


222  THE  BROKE^-UP  FUNERAL. 

There  is  anotlier  thing  that  adds  very  much  to  this 
scene,  and  that  is,  he  was  an  only  son.  However  large  the 
family  flock  may  be,  we  never  could  think  of  sparing  one 
of  the  lambs.  Though  they  may  all  have  their  faults,  they 
all  have  their  excellences  that  commend  them  to  the  pa- 
rental heart ;  and  if  it  were  peremptorily  demanded  of  j^ou 
to-day  that  you  should  yield  up  one  of  your  children  out 
of  a  very  large  family,  you  would  be  confounded,  and  you 
could  not  make  a  selection.  But  this  was  an  only  son, 
around  whom  gathered  all  the  parental  expectations.  How 
much  care  in  his  education !  How  much  caution  in  watch- 
ing his  habits!  He  would  carry  down  the  name  to  other 
times.  He  would  have  entire  control  of  the  family  prop- 
erty long  after  the  parents  had  gone  to  their  last  reward. 
He  would  stand  in  society  a  thinker,  a  worker,  a  philan- 
thropist, a  Christian.  No,  no.  It  is  all  ended.  Behold 
him  there.  Breath  is  gone.  Life  is  extinct.  The  only 
son  of  his  mother. 

There  was  one  other  thing  that  added  to  the  pathos  of 
this  scene,  and  that  was,  his  mother  was  a  widow.  The 
main  hope  of  that  home  had  been  broken,  and  now  he  was 
come  up  to  be  the  staff.  The  chief  light  of  the  household 
had  been  extinguished,  and  this  was  the  only  light  left.  I 
suppose  she  often  said,  looking  at  him,  ''  There  are  only 
two  of  us."  Oh,  it  is  a  grand  thing  to  see  a  young  man 
step  out  in  life,  and  say  to  his  mother,  "  Don't  be  down- 
hearted. I  will,  as  far  as  possible,  take  father's  place,  and 
as  long  as  I  live  3''ou  shall  never  want  any  thing."  It  is 
not  always  that  way.  Sometimes  the  young  people  get 
tired  of  the  old  people.  They  say  they  are  queer;  that 
they  have  so  many  ailments;  and  they  sometimes  wish 
them  out  of  the  way.     A  young  man  and  his  wife  sat  at 


TEE  BROEEN'UP  FUNERAL.  223 

the  table,  their  little  son  on  the  floor  playing  beneath  the 
table.  The  old  father  was  very  old,  and  his  hand  shook 
so,  they  said,  "You  shall  no  more  sit  with  us  at  the  table." 
And  so  they  gave  him  a  place  in  the  corner,  where  day  by 
day  he  ate  out  of  an  earthen  bowl — every  thing  put  into 
that  bowl.  One  day  his  hand  trembled  so  much,  he  drop- 
ped it,  and  it  broke ;  and  the  son,  seated  at  the  elegant  ta- 
ble in  midfloor,  said  to  his  wife,  "  Now,  we'll  get  father  a 
wooden  bowl,  and  that  he  can't  break."  So  a  wooden 
bowl  was  obtained,  and  every  day  old  grandfather  ate  out 
of  that,  sitting  in  the  corner.  One  day,  while  the  elegant 
young  man  and  his  wife  were  seated  at  their  table,  with 
chased  silver  and  all  the  luxuries,  and  their  little  son  sat 
upon  the  floor,  they  saw  the  lad  whittling,  and  they  said, 
"My  son,  what  are  you  doing  there  with  that  knife?" 
"Oh,"  said  he,  "I — I'm  making  a  trough  for  my  father 
and  mother  to  eat  out  of  when  they  get  old  !" 

Bat  this  young  man  of  the  text  was  not  of  that  charac- 
ter. He  did  not  belong  to  that  school.  I  can  tell  it  from 
the  way  they  mourned  over  him.  He  was  to  be  the  com- 
panion of  his  mother.  He  was  to  be  his  mother's  protect- 
or. He  would  return  now  some  of  the  kindnesses  he  had 
received  in  the  days  of  childhood  and  boyhood.  Ay,  he 
would  with  his  strong  hand  uphold  that  form  already  en- 
feebled with  age.  Will  he  do  it?  No.  In  one  hour  all 
that  promise  of  help  and  companionship  is  gone.  There 
is  a  world  of  anguish  in  that  one  short  phrase,  "The  only 
son  of  his  mother,  and  she  a  widow." 

Now,  my  friends,  it  was  upon  this  scene  that  Christ  broke. 
He  came  in  without  any  introduction.  He  stopped  the 
procession.  He  had  only  two  utterances  to  make ;  the 
one  to  the  mourning  mother,  the  other  to  the  dead.     He 


224  THE  BROKEN-UP  FUNERAL. 

cried  out  to  the  mourning  one,  "Weep  not;"  and  then, 
touching  the  bier  on  which  the  son  laj'^,  he  cried  out, 
"Young  man,  I  say  unto  thee,  Arise!  And  he  that  was 
dead  sat  up." 

I  learn  two  or  three  things  from  this  subject,  and,  first, 
that  Christ  ivas  a  man.  You  see  how  that  sorrow  played 
upon  all  the  chords  of  his  heart.  I  think  we  forget  this 
too  often.  Christ  was  a  man  more  certainly  than  you  are, 
for  he  was  a  perfect  man.  No  sailor  ever  slept  in  ship's 
hammock  more  soundly  than  Christ  slept  in  that  boat  on 
Gennesaret.  In  every  nerve,  and  muscle,  and  bone,  and 
fibre  of  his  body  ;  in  every  emotion  and  affection  of  his 
heart ;  in  every  action  and  decision  of  his  mind,  he  was  a 
man.  He  looked  off  upon  the  sea  just  as  you  look  off  upon 
the  waters.  He  went  into  Martha's  house  just  as  you  go 
into  a  cottage.  He  breathed  hard  when  he  was  tired,  just 
as  you  do  when  you  are  exhausted.  He  felt  after  sleeping 
out  a  night  in  the  storm  just  like  you  do  when  you  have 
been  exposed  to  a  tempest.  It  was  just  as  humiliating  for 
him  to  beg  bread  as  it  would  be  for  you  to  become  a  pau- 
per. He  felt  just  as  much  insulted  by  being  sold  for  thirty 
pieces  of  silver  as  you  would  if  you  were  sold  for  the  price 
of  a  dog.  From  the  crown  of  the  head  to  the  sole  of  the 
foot  he  was  a  man.  "When  the  thorns  were  twisted  for 
his  brow,  they  hurt  him  just  as  much  as  they  would  hurt 
your  brow,  if  they  were  twisted  for  it.  He  took  not  on 
him  the  nature  of  angels ;  he  took  on  him  the  seed  of 
Abraham.     Ecce  homo! — Behold  the  man  ! 

But  I  must  also  draw  from  this  subject  that  he  was  a 
God.  Suppose  that  a  man  should  now  attempt  to  break 
up  a  funeral  obsequy :  he  would  be  seized  by  the  law,  he 
would  be  imprisoned,  if  he  were  not  actually  slain  by  the 


THE  BROKEN-UP  FUNERAL.  225 

mob  before  the  officers  could  secure  him.  If  Christ  had 
been  a  mere  mortal,  would  he  have  had  a  right  to  come 
ill  upon  such  a  procession?  Would  he  have  succeeded  in 
his  interruption  ?  He  was  more  than  a  man,  for  when 
he  cried  out,  " '  I  say  unto  thee,  Arise !'  he  that  was  dead 
sat  up."  What  excitement  there  must  have  been  therea- 
bouts !  The  body  had  lain  prostrate.  It  had  been  mourned 
over  with  agonizing  tears,  and  yet  now  it  begins  to  move 
in  the  shroud,  and  to  be  flushed  with  life ;  and,  at  the 
command  of  Christ,  he  rises  up  and  looks  into  the  faces 
of  the  astonished  spectators.  Oh,  this  was  the  work  of  a 
God!  I  hear  it  in  his  voice;  I  see  it  in  the  flash  of  his 
eve  ;  I  behold  it  in  the  snapping  of  death's  sliackles  ;  I  see 
it  in  the  foce  of  the  rising  slumberer;  I  hear  it  in  the  out- 
cry of  all  those  who  were  spectators  of  the  scene.  If,  when 
I  see  my  Lord  Jesus  Christ  mourning  with  the  bereaved, 
I  put  my  hands  on  his  shoulders,  and  say,  "  My  brother," 
now  that  I  hear  him  proclaim  supernatural  deliverances,  I 
look  up  into  his  face  and  say  with  Thomas,  "My  Lord  and 
my  God."  Do  you  not  think  he  was  a  God?  A  great 
many  people  do  not  believe  that,  and  they  compromise  the 
matter,  or  they  think  they  compromise  it.  They  say  he 
was  a  very  good  man,  but  he  was  not  a  God.  Tliat  is  im- 
possible. He  was  either  a  God  or  a  wretch,  and  I  will 
prove  it.  If  a  man  professes  to  be  that  which  he  is  not, 
what  is  he  ?  He  is  a  liar,  an  impostor,  a  hypocrite.  That 
is  3'our  unanimous  verdict.  Now,  Christ  professed  to  be  a 
God.  He  said  over  and  over  again  he  was  a  God,  took  the 
attributes  of  a  God,  and  assumed  the  works  and  offices  of  a 
God.  Dare  you  now  say  he  was  not  ?  lie  was  a  God,  or 
he  was  a  wretch.     Choose  ye. 

Do  you  think  I  can  not  prove  by  this  Bible  that  he  was 

10* 


226  TEE  BROKEN -Ur  FUNERAL. 

a  God  ?  If  you  do  not  believe  this  Bible,  of  course  there  is 
no  need  of  my  talking  with  you.  There  is  no  common  data 
from  wliich  to  start.  Suppose  you  do  believe  it  ?  Then  I 
can  demonstrate  that  he  was  divine.  I  can  prove  he  was 
creator,  John  i.,  3,  "All  things  were  made  by  him;  and  with- 
out him  was  not  any  thing  made  that  was  made."  He  was 
eternal,  Rev.  xxii.,  18,  "  I  am  Alpha  and  Omega,  the  begin- 
ning and  the  end,  the  first  and  the  last."  I  can  prove  he 
was  omnipotent,  Heb.  i,,  10,  "  The  heavens  are  the  work  of 
thine  hands."  I  can  prove  he  was  omniscient,  John  ii.,  25, 
"He  knew  what  was  in  man."  Oh  yes,  he  is  a  God.  He 
cleft  the  sea.  He  upheaved  the  crystalline  walls  along 
which  the  Israelites  marched.  He  planted  the  mountains. 
He  raises  up  governments  and  casts  down  thrones,  and 
marches  across  nations  and  across  worlds  and  across  the 
universe,  eternal,  omnipotent,  unhindered,  and  unabashed. 
That  hand  that  was  nailed  to  the  cross  holds  the  stars  in  a 
leash  of  love.  That  head  that  dropped  on  the  bosom  in 
fainting  and  death  shall  make  the  world  quake  at  its  nod. 
That  voice  that  groaned  in  the  last  pang  shall  swear  before 
the  trembling  world  that  time  shall  be  no  longer.  Oh,  do 
not  insult  the  common  sense  of  the  race  by  telling  us  that 
this  person  was  only  a  man,  in  whose  presence  the  para- 
lytic arm  was  thrust  out  well,  and  the  devils  crouched,  and 
the  lepers  dropped  their  scales,  and  the  tempests  folded 
their  wings,  and  the  boy's  sachel  of  a  few  loaves  made  a 
banquet  for  five  thousand,  and  the  sad  procession  of  my 
text  broke  up  in  congratulation  and  hosanna! 

Again,  I  learn  from  this  subject  that  Christ  ivas  a  sym- 
'pathizer.  Mark  j^ou,  this  was  a  city  funeral.  In  the  coun- 
trj'-,  when  the  bell  tolls,  they  know  all  about  it  for  five 
miles  around,  and  they  know  what  was  the  matter  with 


THE  BROEEN-Ur  FUNERAL.  227 

the  man,  how  old  lie  was,  and  wLat  were  his  last  experi- 
ences. They  know  with  what  temporal  prospects  he  has 
left  his  family.  There  is  no  haste,  there  is  no  indecency 
in  the  obsequies.  There  is  nothing  done  as  a  mere  matter 
of  business.  Even  the  children  come  out  as  the  procession 
passes,  and  look  sympathetic,  and  the  tree-shadows  seem 
to  deepen,  and  the  brooks  weep  in  sympathy  as  the  proces- 
sion goes  by.  But,  mark  you,  this  that  I  am  speaking  of 
was  a  city  funeral.  In  great  cities  the  cart  jostles  the 
hearse,  and  there  is  mirth,  and  gladness,  and  indifference 
as  the  weeping  procession  goes  by.  In  this  city  of  Nain 
it  was  a  common  thing  to  have  trouble  and  bereavement 
and  death.  Christ  saw  it  every  day  there.  Perhaps  that 
very  hour  there  were  others  being  carried  out;  but  this 
frequency  of  trouble  did  not  harden  Christ's  heart  at  all. 
He  stepped  right  out,  and  he  saw  this  mourner,  and  he  had 
compassion  on  her,  and  he  said,  "Weep  not." 

Now,  I  have  to  tell  you,  0  bruised  souls,  and  there  are 
many  here  to-day  (have  you  ever  looked  over  an  audience 
like  this  and  noticed  how  many  shadows  of  sorrow  there 
are?  You  can  not,  M'here  you  sit,  see  them,  but  I  can  from 
where  I  stand),  I  come  to  all  such  to-day  and  say,  "Christ 
meets  you,  and  he  has  compassion  on  you,  and  he  says, 
'Weep  not.'"  Perhaps  with  some  it  is  financial  trouble. 
"Oh,"  you  say,  "it  is  such  a  silly  thing  for  a  man  to  cry 
over  lost  money."  Is  it?  Suppose  you  had  a  large  fort- 
une, and  all  luxuries  brought  to  yoxxx  table,  and  your  ward- 
robe was  full,  and  your  home  was  beautified  by  music  and 
sculpture  and  painting,  and  thronged  by  the  elegant  and 
educated,  and  then  some  rough  misfortune  should  strike 
you  in  the  face,  and  trample  your  treasures,  and  taunt  your 
children  for  their  faded  dress,  and  send  you  into  commer- 


228  THE  BROKEN -VP  FUNERAL. 

cial  circles  an  underling  where  once  you  waved  a  sceptre 
of  gold,  do  you  think  you  would  cry  then  ?  I  think  you 
would.  But  Christ  comes  and  meets  all  such  to-day.  He 
sees  all  the  straits  in  which  you  have  been  thrust.  He 
observes  the  sneer  of  that  man  who  once  was  proud  to 
walk  in  your  shadow,  and  glad  to  get  your  help.  He  sees 
the  protested  note,  the  uncanceled  judgment,  the  foreclosed 
mortgage,  the  heart-breaking  exasperation,  and  he  says, 
"  Weep  not.  I  own  the  cattle  on  a  thousand  hills.  I  will 
never  let  you  starve.  From  my  hand  the  fowls  of  heaven 
peck  all  their  food.  And  will  I  let  you  starve?  Never — 
no,  my  child,  never." 

Or  perhaps  this  tramp  at  the  gate  of  Nain  has  an  echo 
in  your  own  bereft  spirit.  You  went  out  to  the  grave, 
and  you  felt  you  never  could  come  back  again.  You  left 
your  heart  there.  The  white  snow  of  death  covered  all 
the  garden.  You  listen  for  the  speaking  of  voices  that 
will  never  be  heard  again,  and  the  sounding  of  feet  that 
will  never  move  in  your  dwelling  again,  and  there  is  this 
morning,  while  I  speak,  a  dull,  heavy,  leaden  pressure  on 
your  heart.  God  has  dashed  out  the  light  of  your  eyes, 
and  the  heavy  spirit  that  that  woman  carried  out  of  the 
gate  of  Nain  is  no  heavier  than  yours.  And  you  open  the 
door,  but  he  comes  not  in.  And  you  enter  the  nursery, 
but  she  is  not  there.  And  you  sit  at  the  table,  but  there 
is  a  vacant  chair  next  to  you.  And  the  sun  does  not  shine 
as  brightly  as  it  used  to,  and  the  voices  of  affection  do  not 
strike  you  with  so  quick  a  thrill,  and  your  cheek  has  not 
so  healthy  a  hue,  and  your  eye  has  not  so  deep  a  fire.  Do 
I  not  know?  Do  we  not  all  know?  There  is  an  unlifted 
woe  on  your  heart.  You  have  been  out  carrying  your 
loved  one  beyond  the  gate  of  the  city  of  Nain.     But  look 


THE  BROKEN-UP  FUNERAL.  229 

yonder.  Some  one  slands  -watcliing.  He  seems  wailing 
for  3^ou.  As  you  come  np  be  stretches  out  his  hand  of 
help.  His  voice  is  full  of  tenderness,  yet  thrills  with  eter- 
nal strength.  Who  is  it?  The  very  one  who  accosted 
the  mourner  at  the  gate  of  Nain,  and  he  saj's,  "  Weep  not." 
Perhaps  it  is  a  worse  grief  than  that.  It  may  be  a  living 
home  trouble  that  you  can  not  speak  about  to  your  best 
friend.  It  may  be  some  domestic  unhappiness.  It  may 
be  an  evil  suspicion.  It  may  be  the  disgrace  following 
in  the  footsteps  of  a  son  that  is  wayward,  or  a  companion 
who  is  cruel,  or  a  father  that  will  not  do  right;  and  for 
3'cars  there  may  have  been  a  vulture  striking  its  beak  into 
the  vitals  of  your  soul,  and  you  sit  there  to-day  feeling  it 
is  worse  than  death.  It  is.  It  is  worse  than  death.  And 
yet  there  is  relief.  Though  the  night  may  be  the  blackest, 
though  the  voices  of  hell  may  tell  you  to  curse  God  and 
die,  look  up  and  hear  the  voice  that  accosted  the  woman 
of  the  text  as  it  says,  "  Weep  not." 

"Earth  liiith  no  sorrow 
That  heaven  can  not  cure." 

I  learn,  again,  from  all  this  that  Christ  is  the  master  of  the 
grave.  Just  outside  the  gate  of  the  city.  Death  and  Christ 
measured  lances;  and  when  the  young  man  rose.  Death 
dropped.  Now  we  are  sure  of  our  resurrection.  Oh, 
what  a  scene  it  was  when  that  young  man  came  back! 
The  mother  never  expected  to  hear  him  speak  again.  She 
never  thought  that  he  would  kiss  her  again.  How  the 
tears  started,  and  how  her  heail  throbbed,  as  she  said,  "  Oh, 
my  son,  my  son,  my  son !"  And  that  scene  is  going  to  be 
repeated.  It  is  going  to  be  repeated  ten  thousand  times. 
These  broken  fiimily  circles  have  got  to  come  together. 


230  THE  BROKEN-UP  FLWEHAL. 

1'hese  extinguished  household  lights  have  got  to  be  rekin- 
dled. There  will  be  a  stir  in  the  family  lot  in  the  ceme- 
tery, and  there  will  be  a  rush  into  life  at  the  command, 
"  Young  man,  I  say  unto  thee.  Arise !"  As  the  child  shakes 
off  the  dust  of  the  tomb,  and  comes  forth  fresh  and  fair  and 
beautiful,  and  you  throw  your  arms  around  it  and  press  it 
to  your  heart,  angel  to  angel  will  repeat  the  story  of  Nain, 
"He  delivered  him  to  his  mother."  Did  you  notice  that 
passage  in  the  text  as  I  read  it?  "He  delivered  him  to 
his  mother."  O  ye  troubled  souls !  O  ye  who  have  lived 
to  see  every  prospect  blasted,  peeled,  scattered,  consumed  ! 
wait  a  little.  The  seed-time  of  tears  will  become  the  wheat 
harvest.  In  a  clime  cut  of  no  wintry  blast,  under  a  sky 
palled  by  no  hurtling  tempest,  and  amidst  redeemed  ones 
that  weep  not,  that  part  not,  that  die  not,  friend  will  come 
to  friend,  and  kindred  will  join  kindred,  and  the  long  pro- 
cession that  marches  the  avenues  of  gold  will  lift  up  their 
palms  as  again  and  again  it  is  announced  that  the  same 
one  who  came  to  the  relief  of  this  woman  of  the  text  came 
to  the  relief  of  many  a  maternal  heart,  and  repeated  the 
wonders  of  resurrection,  and  "delivered  him  to  his  mother." 
Oh,  that  will  be  the  harvest  of  the  world.  That  will  be 
the  coronation  of  princes.  That  will  be  the  Sabbath  of 
eternity. 


BARTEliiya  FOR  ETERiilTY.  23  i 


BARTERING  FOR  ETERNITY. 

"Buy  the  truth,  and  sell  it  not." — Proverbs  xxiii.,  23. 

CHRIST  never  forgot  the  occupation  of  the  people  to 
whom  he  spake.  Ilis  metaphors  and  illustrations 
were  apt  to  be  drawn  from  the  every-day  business  of  the 
people  whom  he  addressed.  Speaking  to  the  fishermen, 
be  said,  "  The  Gospel  is  a  net  let  down  into  the  sea."  Ad- 
dressing himself  to  the  farmers,  he  said,  "A  sower  went 
forth  to  sow,  and  some  of  the  seed  fell  on  good  ground,  and 
some  on  thorny  ground."  That  he  might  attract  the  at- 
tention of  the  shepherds,  he  tells  the  parable  of  the  lost 
sheep,  and  how  the  shepherd  went  out  in  the  wilderness 
to  bring  it  home  to  the  fold.  In  order  that  the  plainest 
woman  that  ever  mixed  bread  might  not  be  in  doubt  as  to 
what  he  meant,  he  said,  "  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like 
leaven,  or  yeast,  which  leavens  the  whole  lump."  Indeed, 
there  were  no  learned  allusions,  there  was  no  profound 
disquisition,  there  was  no  acute  analysis,  in  the  addresses 
of  Christ.  They  were  merely  a  plain  talk  from  a  heart 
overflowing  with  love  for  the  people,  in  a  way  that  all  the 
people  understood. 

There  is  hardly  a  style  of  mind  that  is  not  susceptible 
to  illustration.  One  Sabbath  I  was  preaching  on  an  In- 
dian reservation  to  an  audience  of  Indians.  I  was  trying, 
at  that  time,  to  impress  upon  them  the  foct  that  childhood 
generally  indicated  the  character  of  manhood.  They  did 
not  seem  to  understand  until  I  told  them  that  a  crooked 


232  BARTERING  FOR  ETERNITY. 

young  tree  makes  a  crooked  old  tree,  and  then  their  eyes 
flashed  with  intelligence. 

When  my  text  says,  "  Buy  the  truth,  and  sell  it  not,"  it 
employs  an  illustration  which  ought  to  attract  the  attention 
of  all  those  directly  or  indirectly  engaged  in  merchandise. 
Would  to  God  that  we  were  all  as  wise  in  managing  the 
matters  of  the  soul  as  we  are  in  worldly  traffic !  I  want, 
this  morning,  to  give  some  of  the  characteristics  of  a  wise 
spiritual  merchant. 

In  the  first  place,  I  remark  that  the  wise  spiritual  mer- 
chant ivill  not  neglect  to  take  an  account  of  stock.  We  are 
coming  on  toward  the  1st  of  Ja^iuary,  and  all  our  business 
men  will  be  absorbed.  They  who  ordinarily  go  over  at 
eight  or  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning  to  business  will  go  at 
seven  ;  and  if  you  happen  to  be  on  the  street  some  night  at 
eleven  or  twelve  o'clock,  you  will  meet  them ;  and  if  you 
ask,  "Why  are  you  coming  home  so  late?"  they  will  say, 
"We  are  taking  an  account  of  stock."  Every  wise  busi- 
ness-man does  that.  Once  a  year  all  the  goods  must  be 
handled,  and  every  shelf  must  be  ransacked,  and  the  rem- 
nants must  be  unrolled,  and  the  dusty  bundles  unwrapped, 
and  every  thing  in  the  store  must  be  upturned.  Once  a 
year  the  business  man  wants  to  know  how  things  stand, 
lie  reviews  the  books,  writes  them  up,  and  draws  out  on  a 
fair  balance-sheet  all  his  worldly  circumstances ;  so  many 
goods,  so  many  liabilities ;  so  much  capital  that  is  compar- 
atively worthless,  so  much  that  can  be  easily  turned  into 
cash ;  so  many  debts  ;  so  many  bills  out  that  are  perfectly 
good,  so  manj^  that  arc  doubtful.  In  other  words,  he  looks 
over  all  the  affliirs  of  the  3'ear,  and  knows  just  what  posi- 
tion he  occupies.  Now,  my  friends,  ought  we  not  to  be 
just  as  scrutinizing  in  the  matters  of  the  soul  ?     The  Eoths- 


BARTERING  FOR  ETERKITT.  233 

cliilds  or  the  Stewarts  never  did  a  business  of  such  infinite 
importance  as  that  going  on  in  the  heart  of  every  man  and 
■woman  in  this  audience.  There  are  the  goods — the  facul- 
ties and  energies  and  passions  of  your  soul.  There  are  the 
liabilities — to  temptation,  to  danger,  and  death.  Can  it  be 
that  we  have  never  taken  an  account  of  stock  ?  Can  it  be 
that  we  have  been  running  this  tremendous  business  for 
eternity,  and  never  drawn  out  our  affairs  on  a  balance- 
sheet?  I  know  such  a  review  is  not  pleasant.  Neither 
does  any  merchant  find  it  agreeable  to  take  an  account  of 
stock.  You  all  put  the  day  off  as  long  as  you  can.  You 
do  not  know  what  it  may  reveal  to  you.  You  say,  "  There 
may  come  up  something  in  review  that  I  don't  want  to 
know,  and  yet,  after  all,  I  must,  as  a  business -man,  attend 
to  it."  And  though  3'ou  put  it  off  as  long  as  you  can,  you 
after  a  while  say,  "Boys,  we'll  go  and  take  an  account  of 
stock."  Many  a  man  has  been  surprised,  at  the  close  of 
that  operation,  to  find  how  poorly  he  was  off.  Ah  1  it  is 
just  as  unpleasant  to  review  our  spiritual  condition.  The 
fact  is,  we  are  insolvent.  We  owe  debts  we  can  never  pay. 
We  have  been  running  this  business  of  the  soul  so  poorly 
that  we  have  got  to  be  wound  up.  We  can  not  pay  one 
cent  on  a  dollar.  We  can  not  answer  for  one  of  ten  thou- 
sand of  our  transgressions.  There  has  never,  in  worldly 
affairs,  been  such  a  miserable  failure  in  Wall  Street  or 
State  Street  as  we  have  made  in  spiritual  affairs.  We  owe 
God  every  thing.  We  have  paid  him  nothing ;  some  of 
us  have  never  tried  to  pay  him  any  thing. 

But  sometimes,  when  a  man  is  thoroughly  cornered  in 
business  matters,  and  he  says,  "  I  must  stop  payment," 
■while  he  is  sitting  in  his  store  or  office  thoroughly  discour- 
aged, there  is  a  rap  at  the  door.     "  Come  in,"  he  says ;  aa 


234  BARTERIKO  FOR  ETERNITY. 

old  friend  enters.  He  says,  "I  hear  you  are  in  great  diffi- 
culty ;  how  much  money  will  get  you  out  of  this  embarrass- 
ment ?"  "  Well,"  you  say,  "  five  thousand  dollars  would." 
He  says,  "Here  it  is" — bank,  pay  so  and  so.  The  man  is 
delivered  from  all  his  commercial  distresses.  Just  so, 
while  we  are  sitting  down  disheartened  on  account  of  our 
sin,  and  feeling  that  there  is  no  hope,  there  is  a  rap  at  the 
door  of  the  heart ;  it  is  Jesus  coming  in.  He  says,  "  What 
do  you  want?"  We  answer,  "We  want  pardon,  we  want 
peace,  we  want  the  eternal  salvation  of  the  Gospel."  Jesus 
says,  "  There  it  is."  The  debts  are  paid,  the  obligations 
are  canceled.  Now,  we  do  business  on  an  infinite  capital. 
Now,  all  the  banks  of  eternity  are  ready  with  their  loans. 
Now,  we  have  on  paper  the  name  of  the  King.  There  is  no 
condemnation  to  them  who  are  in  Christ  Jesus. 

"The  soul  that  on  Jesus  hath  leaned  for  repose, 
I  will  not,  I  will  not  desert  to  its  foes ; 
That  soul,  though  all  hell  sliould  endeavor  to  shake, 
I'll  never,  no,  never,  no,  never  forsake." 

I  remark  again,  the  wise  spiritual  merchant  will  be  on 
his  guard  against  hurglars.  How  long  it  takes  you  to  lock 
up  your  store  at  night!  You  put  your  valuables  in  the 
safe,  you  shove  the  door  to,  you  turn  the  lock ;  you  try 
it  afterward  to  be  sure  it  is  fastened;  you  bolt  and  rebolt 
your  doors.  You  have  a  watchman,  perhaps,  at  the  store. 
You  charge  the  police,  when  they  go  up  and  down,  once  in 
a  while  to  look  in.  In  addition  to  that,  perhaps,  you  have 
a  burglar-alarm,  so  that  the  opening  of  a  window  or  door 
in  the  night  with  a  great  rattle  will  wake  up  the  watch- 
man. Perhaps  you  have  a  watch-dog  under  the  counter, 
who  feels  the  responsibility  of  the  store  resting  on  his 
shaggy  neck,  his  mouth  down  between  his  paws.     If  there 


BARTEEINO  FOR  ETERNITY.  2oO 

be  the  least  sound,  he  lifts  one  ear,  he  lifts  his  head,  lie 
rises  up,  and  then  lies  down  again  with  a  growl,  as  much 
as  to  say,  "  I  wish  it  had  been  somebody."  Would  to  God 
that  we  were  as  wise  in  regard  to  spiritual  burglaries! 
There  are  a  thousand  temptations  around  about  our  soul 
ready  to  blow  it  up ;  ready  to  blast  it ;  ready  to  shove  the 
bolt  and  steal  the  infinite  and  immortal  treasure.  The 
apostle  says,  "  What  I  say  unto  one,  I  say  unto  all — 
watch!"  That  is,  look  out  for  burglars.  Here  comes  a 
thief  stealing  our  Christian  belief,  and  it  is  very  easy  to 
lose  it,  but  it  is  not  so  easy  to  get  it  back  again.  Let  it 
once  be  gone,  and  all  the  detectives  on  earth  can  not  fetch 
it  back.  Alas  for  the  man  who,  once  believing  in  Chris- 
tianity, now  rejects  it!  He  tries  to  be  satisfied,  and  he  tries 
to  make  you  believe  he  is  satisfied  ;  but  the  most  doleful 
thing  on  earth  is  a  religion  without  Jesus  Christ  in  it.  If 
there  are  any  pries  at  the  door  of  your  heart,  if  any  of 
those  burglars  are  trying  to  break  in  the  windows  of  your 
soul,  you  had  better  fly  at  them  with  infinite  vehemence, 
and  ask  the  Lord  God  to  help  you  in  the  arrest. 

Here  is  another  trying  to  break  in  and  steal  your  pa- 
tience. It  puts  something  explosive  in  your  temper,  and 
tries  to  blow  it  up.  Here  3'OU  have  a  casket  of  diamonds 
made  of  days  and  hours  and  months  of  precious  time.  Oh, 
how  many  burglars  there  are  around  trying  to  steal  those 
diamonds!  Temptations  to  pride,  temptations  to  self-in- 
dulgence, temptations  to  neglect  the  great  things  of  eter- 
nity, make  up  a  gang  of  desperadoes  that  have  broken  out 
of  the  jail  of  hell,  and  are  prowling  around  onr  soul  try- 
ing to  steal  this  treasure;  and,  in  the  name  of  God,  I  bid 
you,  arm  ngainst  them.  They  have  taken  many  of  the 
spoils  already,  and  I  cry,  "Stop  thief  I" 


236  BARTERING  FOR  ETERNITY. 

"  My  soul,  be  on  thy  guard, 
Ten  thousand  foes  arise, 
And  hosts  of  sin  are  pressing  hard 
To  draw  thee  from  the  skies. 

"Ne'er  think  the  victory  won, 
Nor  once  at  ease  sit  down. 
Thine  arduous  work  will  not  be  done 
Till  thou  hast  got  thy  crown," 

I  remark,  again,  that  the  wise  spiritual  merchant  will 
watch  the  state  of  the  markets.  When  the  business  man 
takes  up  the  paper  in  the  morning,  he  does  not  first  look 
at  the  marriages  and  deaths  or  the  editorials.  He  looks  at 
the  price-current.  Before  ten  o'clock  merchants  all  know 
whether  gold  has  gone  up  or  down,  whether  the  goods 
they  have  on  the  shelf  have  increased  or  decreased  in 
value.  A  man  might  say,  "It  is  nothing  to  me  how  others 
do  business,  or  what  prices  others  get;  I  shall  go  straight 
on  without  any  reference  to  any  body  else  in  business." 
You  know  that  would  be  the  precursor  of  bankruptcy. 
He  watches  the  markets ;  he  can  not  afford  to  be  indiffer- 
ent. Now,  I  say  we  ought  to  be  just  as  alert  in  looking 
at  the  spiritual  markets.  We  ought  to  know  whether  the 
cause  of  God  in  the  earth  is  going  up  or  down.  No  man 
can  be  independent  of  the  general  state  of  morals  and  of 
religion  in  the  community.  For  this  reason,  every  intelli- 
gent Christian  will  be  examining  the  churches,  the  schools, 
and  the  benevolent  organizations.  The  failure  of  a  crop 
in  Eussia,  or  of  a  bank  in  London,  or  the  breaking-out  of  a 
war  in  India  affects  prices  in  the  New  York  market ;  and 
the  conversion  of  one  soul  in  Central  Africa  ought  to  leave 
its  impression  on  every  intelligent  Christian  in  Brooklyn. 
It  is  my  business  this  morning  to  proclaim  to  you  the  state 
of  the  spiritual  markets,  and  I  tell  you  the  cause  of  God  is 


BABTERiya  FOR  ETERNITY.  237 

advancing.  The  people  are  buying  the  truth,  and  are  not 
so  disposed  to  sell  it  as  they  used  to  be.  The  ships  of 
Tarshish  are  coming  into  the  harbor  of  God,  and  the  gold 
and  frankincense  and  myrrh  are  showering  down  at  the 
feet  of  Jesus.  The  religion  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is 
rising.  The  nations  are  bidding  for  this  Gospel,  and  the 
merchandise  of  it  is  better  than  the  merchandise  of  silver. 

If  this  religion  of  Christ  is  advancing  in  value,  and  must 
continue  advancing,  your  business  judgment  will  tell  you 
the  larger  the  investment  you  make  in  it,  the  better.  Other 
values  may  have  depressions.  You  might  buy  Michigan 
Central,  perhaps,  at  125,  and  it  might  drop  to  120 ;  you 
might  buy  Pittsburg,  Fort  Wayne,  and  Chicago  for  85, 
and  it  might  drop  to  83,  and  you  might  be  ruined.  But 
these  Gospel  values  always  will  be  on  the  advance.  Some- 
times the  Government  comes  on  the  marts  of  business  and 
upsets  the  planning  of  the  gold-gamblers,  and  vindicates 
justice  and  the  rights  of  the  people;  and  the  Lord  God  Al- 
mighty is  the  mightiest  of  financiers,  and  he  will  scatter  to 
the  four  winds  of  heaven  all  the  plotters  of  iniquity,  and 
he  will  vindicate  his  government,  and  make  his  own  chil- 
dren the  princes  of  eternity. 

O  these  spiritual  values!  Men  do  not  know  how  to 
estimate  them.  You  give  a  dollar  to  a  Christian  object, 
and  say,  "That's  gone;  I'll  never  hear  of  that  again." 
You  give  twent3'-five  dollars  to  worldly  gratification,  and 
you  think  you  have  made  a  good  investment.  Have  you? 
Of  the  twenty-five  dollars  you  gave  to  the  worldly  gratifi- 
cation you  will  bear  nothing;  but  that  one  dollar  has  been 
an  investment  that  will  go  on  accumulating  interest  and 
adding  compound  interest  until  it  will  take  the  mightiest 
intelligence  of  heaven  to  estimate  what  is  the  value  of  that 


238  BASTEEINO  FOE  ETERNITY. 

dollar  rolling  on  through  aH  eternity  until  the  banking- 
houses  of  heaven  can  not  hold  the  accumulation.  We  can 
not  understand  now  God's  way  of  estimating  things.  The 
■woman  who  sells  in  her  thread-and-needle  store  one  thou- 
sand dollars'  worth  a  year  can  not  estimate  the  plans  of  a 
man  who  sells  two  millions  of  dollars'  worth  of  goods  a 
year.  God's  projects  are  too  vast  for  us.  We  talk  of  one 
man  buying  a  railroad,  or  of  another  baying  half  a  city. 
Why,  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  bought  the  whole  earth,  and 
paid  for  it  in  one  day — paid  for  it  in  tears  and  agony  and 
blood !  You  talk  about  vast  corporations  and  moneyed 
institutions  and  powerful  companies ;  but  the  richest  com- 
pany in  all  the  universe  is  the  company  of  Christ's  disci- 
ples, and  the  poorest  one  of  them  will  be  a  millionaire  to 
all  eternity.  I  take  one  of  these  bonds  of  the  company, 
and  I  tear  off  just  one  coupon,  and  hand  it  to  you,  and  you 
read  on  that  coupon  these  words,  "All  are  yours."  If  a 
man  wants  a  better  dividend  than  that,  I  do  not  know 
where  he  will  get  it. 

Again,  I  remark  that  the  wise  spiritual  merchant  is  care- 
ful to  get  a  profit  out  of  every  thing  that  passes  through  his 
hands.  You  go  into  the  store.  You  see  the  roll  of  nan- 
keen, or  the  barrel  of  sugar,  or  the  string  of  bananas,  or  the 
coil  of  ship  cable.  Before  the  merchant  lets  them  pass  out 
of  his  hands,  he  will  make  a  profit  out  of  them.  If  he  has 
paid  ten  cents  a  yard  for  something,  he  will  get  twelve  or 
fifteen;  if  he  has  paid  twenty-five  cents  for  a  pound,  he 
will  get  thirt3^  Now,  I  say  the  wise  spiritual  merchant 
will  get  a  spiritual  advantage  out  of  every  thing  that  comes 
across  him — from  all  sorrows,  all  perplexities,  all  vexations. 
He  will  take  these  harrows  and  furnaces  of  trouble,  and 
from  them  get  an  everlasting  profit.     Affliction  has  failed 


BARTEItlXG  F0I2  ETERNITY.  239 

of  its  object  if  it  does  not  leave  a  soul  worth  more  tban 
when  it  came.  It  is  very  interesting  to  get  into  confiden- 
tial conversation  with  a  man  who  has  gained  a  large  pi'op- 
erty,  and  to  have  him  tell  you  just  how  he  made  his  rnonej' ; 
but  it  is  more  interesting  to  get  into  the  confidence  of  an 
old  Christian,  and  have  him  tell  you  just  how  he  accumu- 
lated his  wealth  of  Christian  character.  He  will  say,  "My 
property  went  down  in  1857,  but  I  came  out  of  that  trouble 
with  inlinite  resources  of  spiritual  comfoit  and  strength." 
lie  will  say,  "I  w^as  sick  for  three  months,  and  could  not 
do  a  stroke  of  work ;  and  when  I  came  forth  I  was  as  weak 
as  a  child,  and  staggered  along  the  street ;  but,  oh  !  my 
soul  bad  the  strength  of  a  giant."  And  he  will  tell  you 
of  the  dark  day  that  came  in  his  household  when  a  loved 
one  was  carried  out,  and  he  felt  that  eveiy  thing  was  gone 
with  it;  and  on  his  way  back  from  the  cemetery  Jesus  met 
him  and  said,  "Weep  not,  I  will  make  up  for  thy  loss;  I 
will  more  than  make  up  for  it.  Those  little  feet  are  al- 
ready bounding  along  the  corridors  of  heaven.  That  hand 
is  already  sweeping  the  harp -strings  of  glory."  Jesus 
took  that  afflicted  fother  to  the  verge  of  the  grave,  and  bid 
him  look  down  into  it,  and  instead  of  a  grave  it  became  a 
chest  of  immortal  brilliants.  As  he  ran  his  hand  up  and 
down  the  gate  of  the  sepulchre  he  found  it  hard,  cold, 
rusty  iron,  but  Jesus  touched  it  and  it  became  solid  pearl 
— bars  of  pearl,  bolts  of  pearl,  hinges  of  pearl,  and,  lo  !  it 
was  the  gate  of  heaven.  'All  things  work  together  for  good 
to  those  who  love  God  ;"  and  I  pray  the  Lord  Almighty 
that,  whatever  misfortune,  whatever  vexation,  whatever 
trial,  whatever  bereavements  pass  through  our  soul,  we  may 
reap  from  them  a  spiritual  tariff  that  will  make  us  richer 
while  wc  live  on  earth,  and  glad  through  all  eternity. 


240  BARTERING  FOR  ETERNITY. 

I  remark,  again,  that  the  wise  spiritual  merchant  will 
not  take  any  unnecessary  risks.  Befoi'e  the  ship  goes  out 
of  the  harbor,  application  is  made  to  the  marine  insurance 
company  ;  the  Board  of  Underwriters  say  it  is  all  right;  the 
insurance  papers  are  signed  and  delivered.  It  is  the  only 
safe  way  to  do.  Twelve  hours  after  the  ship  gets  beyond 
the  Hook,  it  might  perish,  and  the  whole  thing  be  a  total 
loss.  A  man  will  not  take  such  a  risk  for  himself.  You 
have  your  store  insured,  you  have  your  stock  of  goods  in- 
sured. If  the  insurance  runs  out  on  Saturday,  you  do  not 
wait  until  Monday  to  renew  it.  You  say,  on  Sunday  the 
whole  thing  may  perish  in  a  conflagration.  You  can  not 
afford  to  take  the  risk.  Somebody  shows  you  an  operation 
by  which  you  might  make,  perhaps,  five  thousand  dollars; 
but  you  say,  "Perhaps  I  might  not.  Perhaps  I  might  lose 
that,  imd  ruin  my  credit.  I  can't  take  the  risk."  So  you 
do  not  enter  into  the  enterprise.  Oh  that  we  were  as  wise 
in  taking  spiritual  risks!  We  will,  after  a  while,  founder 
on  the  sea  of  death.  What  is  the  amount  of  our  policy? 
How  will  we  come  out  of  that  disaster?  Suppose  a  man 
says,  "  I  am  not  ready  now  for  eternity,  but  I  mean  to  be." 
Let  us  calculate  the  risk;  not  as  a  minister  talks  to  the 
people,  but  as  one  business  man  talks  to  another,  let  us 
calculate  the  risk  that  man  runs.  The  lungs  may  congest; 
the  brain  may  be  fevered  ;  the  foot  may  slip ;  a  brick  may 
fall  from  the  workman's  hod ;  ferry-boats  may  collide ;  a 
frightened  horse  may  dash  over  him ;  a  pistol  may  go  off 
accidentally ;  poisoned  air  may  be  breathed ;  the  reason 
may  topple;  the  heart  may  stop.  The  man  who  stays 
away  from  Jesus  Christ,  and  makes  no  preparation  for  eter- 
nity, runs  ten  thousand  risks,  infinite  risks,  every  day  of 
his  life.     After  Lord  Byron  died,  they  cut  his  heart  out  and 


BAItTEJilXO  FOR  IJTEIiXITY.  241 

put  it  in  a  beautiful  case;  and  some  people  who  were  in- 
fatuated with  him  thought  that  there  was  in  that  heart  in 
the  case  some  wonderful  charm ;  and  the  Greeks  carried 
it  out  into  battle,  and  it  was  lost  —  lost  in  the  swamps, 
and  never  heard  of.  It  was  considered  an  ominous  and  a 
terrible  loss.  But,  my  friends,  it  was  only  a  dead  heart. 
What  was  that  compared  with  the  loss  of  a  living^  immortal 
soul?  Christ  saw  that  soul  from  eternity,  and,  traveling  in 
the  greatness  of  his  strength  across  all  the  ages,  he  comes  to 
save  it,  and  stands  this  morning  in  its  presence.  Will  you 
let  him  save  it?  Oh  this  soul  that  you  have  beating  with- 
in your  breast! — this  soul  of  tremendous  faculties;  a  soul 
that  can  soar  higher  than  angel's  wing  ever  flew,  or  sink 
deeper  than  devil's  foot  ever  plunged ;  a  soul  that  will 
soon  weigh  anchor  for  a  ceaseless  voyage  ;  a  soul  for  which 
all  the  armies  of  light  with  drawn  swords,  and  all  the  bat- 
talions of  the  darkness  with  the  artillery  of  death,  are  con- 
tending; and  while  the  battle  rages  there  are  songs  and 
curses,  opening  of  gates  of  light  and  slamming  to  of  pris- 
on doors.  Lord  God !  have  I  such  a  soul  ?  How  shall  I 
defend  it?  IIow  shall  I  hide  it?  In  what  cave  of  the 
mountain  shall  I  secrete  it?  Rather  than  surrender  that 
soul,  I  must  pass  the  stream ;  I  must  go  through  the  fire ; 
I  must  climb  the  rocks;  I  must  station  myself  in  some  de- 
file of  the  mountain,  and  with  immortal  courage  and  per- 
sistence fight  against  those  influences  that  would  capture 
my  soul  and  destroy  it. 

Blessed  be  God,  in  Jesus  Christ  the  soul  is  safe.  There 
is  no  risk  for  that  soul  that  is  in  Christ's  keeping.  All 
other  banks  may  fail,  all  other  securities  may  prove  worth- 
less; but  the  greater  the  rush  upon  this  bank,  the  wider 
the  doors  will  open.     As  other  gold  depreciates,  this  treas- 

11 


242  BARTERING  FOR  ETERNITY. 

ure  will  rise  in  value.  After  all  earthly  shares  have  failed, 
heaven  will  declare  its  largest  dividend.  Long  after  the 
last  stock -exchange  of  earth  has  been  disbanded,  "the 
foundation  of  the  Lord  standeth  sure,  having  this  seal,  the 
Lord  knoweth  them  that  are  his."  If  you  have  made  these 
spiritual  investments,  I  congratulate  you.  They  will  in- 
crease in  value  while  you  live ;  they  will  be  worth  more 
in  eternity  than  they  are  now.  I  bid  you  be  of  good  cheer. 
Look  out  that  none  of  your  treasures  are  stolen. 

Are  there  some  here  who  have  never  bought  the  truth? 
or,  after  buying  it,  have  you  sold  it?  Let  me  say,  you  are 
not  wise.  The  Indian  who  sells  a  thousand  acres  of  land 
for  one  poor  string  of  beads  makes  a  better  bargain  than 
that  man  who  wins  the  world  but  loses  his  soul. 

"What  is  the  thing  of  greatest  price 
The  whole  creation  round  ? 
That  which  was  lost  in  paradise, 
That  which  in  Cluist  is  found." 


A  BASKET  OF  SUMMER  FRUIT.  2-13 


A  BASKET  OF  SUMMER  FRUIT. 

"And  he  said,  Amos,  what  seest  thou  ?  And  I  said,  A  basket  of  sum- 
mer tVuit." — Amos  y'm.,  2. 

A  STOUT- CHESTED,  swarthj-limbed,  brave-hearted 
man  was  called  out  to  rebuke  Israel.  His  name  was 
Amos.  He  had  been  brought  up  amidst  sheep  and  cattle, 
and,  in  addition  to  his  occupation  of  herdsman,  he  had  the 
business  of  gathering  sycamore  fruit — a  very  difficult  busi- 
ness, because  if  the  fruit  were  not  properly  ripened,  and 
just  before  its  maturing  it  were  not  punctured  with  the 
teeth  of  an  iron  comb,  then  the  fruit  would  be  bitter,  and 
thoroughly  unpalatable.  Having  always  lived  in  the 
country,  when  Amos  comes  to  write  or  to  speak,  his  al- 
lusions are  rural — full  of  threshing-floors,  and  sheaf-laden 
carts,  and  grasshoppers,  and  mowings,  and  orchards,  and 
vineyards,  and,  in  my  text,  "  a  basket  of  summer  fruit." 
Just  what  kind  of  fruit  this  was  I  do  not  know,  whether 
sycamore  frui*^.  or  pomegranates  or  figs ;  but  I  do  know 
that  God  meant  for  Israel,  and  means  to-night  for  us,  the 
truth  that  spiritual  blessing,  like  summer  fruit,  must  be 
used  immediately,  or  it  will  perish. 

Last  week  I  saw  farmers  out  on  Long  Island  gathering 
their  winter  npples;  and  if  these  apples  arc  carefully  put 
away,  they  will  last  until  next  spring.  You  know  there 
are  pears  which  are  better  two  or  three  months  after  they 
are  taken  from  the  orchard  than  at  the  time  they  drop. 
And  there  were  clusters  of  grapes  yesterday  that  went  ia 


24i  A  BASKET  OF  SUMMER  FRUIT. 

from  the  arbor  that  will  next  Christmas  or  Thanksgiving- 
daj  hang  above  the  banquet.  But  my  text  compares  our 
opportunities  of  repentance  and  return  to  more  perishable 
products.  Ay,  it  sets  before  you  in  graphic  vision  a  bas- 
ket of  summer  fruit. 

Many  of  you  remember  a  few  years  ago  when  the  peach 
crop  suddenly  ripened,  and  all  the  rail  trains  and  steamers 
coming  to  our  city  were  laden  with  the  delicious  product. 
The  fruit  was  dead  ripe,  and  not  able  to  wait  until  the 
glutted  markets  were  cleared,  and  so  there  were  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  dollars'  worth  of  the  fruit  thrown  into  the 
streets  and  into  the  rivers,  or  carted  back  again  to  enrich 
the  soil.  0  the  perishable  nature  of  summer  fruit !  It  is  so 
much  like  our  spiritual  blessings,  which  must  be  used  im- 
mediately, or  never  used  at  all.  To-night,  instead  of  having 
you  wander  around  as  through  the  stalls  of  an  agricultural 
fair,  I  would  have  you,  with  profound  and  agitated  feel- 
ings of  soul,  look  upon  this  text  as  depicting  your  last 
chance  for  heaven  as  it  is  ail-suggestively  set  forth.  "  Be- 
hold, a  basket  of  summer  fruit." 

Was  this  statement  of  the  text  the  blundering  compari- 
son of  a  man  not  used  to  literary  composition  ?  Do  you 
think  the  analogy  will  hold  out?  Is  there  any  similarity 
between  the  Gospel  and  summer  fruit?  Oh  yes.  They 
both,  in  the  first  jjlace^  mean  health.  God  every  summer 
doctors  the  ailments  of  the  world  by  the  orchards  and 
groves.  The  failing  of  the  orchards  is  a  license  to  all 
kinds  of  diseases,  and  plenty  of  fruit  ordinarily  means  im- 
proved sanitary  condition.  So  this  Gospel  means  health. 
It  makes  a  man  mighty  for  work  and  strong  for  contest. 
It  cures  spiritual  ailments.  It  helps  the  soul  that  is  de- 
crepit, bound  on  in  the  road  to  heaven.    It  is  juvenescence. 


A  BASKET  OF  SUMMER  FRUIT.  245 

It  is  convalescence.  It  kindles  the  eje  with  brilliant- an- 
ticipations. It  thrills  the  soul  with  glories  to  come.  It  is 
not  a  weak  sentimentalit3^  It  helped  Paul  to  stand  un- 
blanched  on  the  deck  of  the  foundering  corn-ship,  and  it 
helped  Luther  to  nail  his  defiant  "  theses  "  against  the  door 
of  the  electoral  college,  the  thumping  of  his  hammer  echo- 
ing through  all  the  ages.  It  has  helped  ten  thousand  souls 
to  spring  through  flood  and  fire  to  glories  immortal.  Oh, 
it  is  a  swarthy  Gospel !  Mighty  in  itself,  it  makes  men 
mighty.  It  gives  one  overmastering  power  in  the  day  of 
trouble.  The  Church  cries  out  to  Christ,  in  the  Canticles, 
"  Comfort  me  with  apples ;"  and  so  to-night  I  shake  down 
upon  you  a  whole  orchard  of  fruit,  while  I  read  that  the 
fruits  of  the  Spirit  are  love,  joy,  peace,  patience,  brotherly 
kindness,  charity.  Gather  it  up  from  the  ground — large, 
round,  luscious.  Take  it  home  with  3'ou  —  "a  basket  of 
summer  fruit." 

I  notice  that  the  analogy,  also,  is  found  in  the  fact  that 
summer  fruit  is  pleasant  to  the  eye  and  lite  taste.  So  the 
Gospel,  when  a  man  rightly  sees  it  and  tastes  it,  is  very 
pleasant.  Whether  summer  fruit  be  piled  up  in  the  or- 
chard, or  on  the  barn  floor,  or  on  the  platter  of  the  table, 
the  commingling  of  green  and  gold  and  red  and  brown  in 
the  cheek  of  the  fruit  is  very  fascinating.  You  know  that 
some  artists  deal  chiefly  with  pictures  of  fruit;  and  while 
Correggio  delights  to  sketch  physical  beauty,  and  Turner 
drops  the  sea-foam  on  the  canvas,  and  Cuyp  drives  up  his 
cattle  at  evening-tide,  and  Eosa  Bonheur  catches  by  the 
halter  the  rearing  steeds  at  the  "Horse  Fair,"  and  Edwin 
Landseer  whistles  up  the  dogs,  there  are  many  of  our 
modern  painters  who  are  putting  all  their  power  on  fruit 
pieces ;  and  I  do  not  wonder  at  it.     There  is  a  beauty  in 


246  A  BASKET  OF  SUMMER  FRVIT. 

fruit  indescribable.  So  it  is  with  the  Gospel  of  Christ.  It 
charms  the  young  and  the  old,  the  well  and  the  sick,  the 
wise  and  the  ignorant.  It  has  the  glitter  of  the  wave,  the 
aroma  of  flowers,  the  fascination  of  music.  It  is  the  lux- 
•ury  of  the  ages.  Religion  is  not  an  abbess — is  not  a  cen- 
obite.  "  Her  ways  are  ways  of  pleasantness,  and  all  her 
paths  are  peace." 

In  June,  1815,  there  was  a  very  noble  party  gathered  in 
a  house  in  St.  James's  Square,  London.  Tlie  prince  re- 
gent was  present,  and  the  occasion  was  made  fascinating  by 
music  and  banqueting  and  by  jewels.  While  a  quadrille 
was  being  formed,  suddenly  all  the  people  rushed  to  the 
windows.  What  is  the  matter?  Henry  Percy  had  ar- 
rived with  the  news  that  Waterloo  had  been  fought,  and 
that  England  had  won  the  day.  The  dance  was  aban- 
doned ;  the  party  dispersed ;  lords,  ladies,  and  musicians 
rushed  into  the  street,  and  in  fifteen  minutes  from  the  first 
aimouncement  of  the  good  news  the  house  was  emptied 
of  all  its  guests.  O  ye  who  are  seated  at  the  banquet  of 
this  world,  or  whirling  in  its  gayeties  and  frivolities,  if 
to-night  you  could  hear  the  sweet  strains  of  the  Gospel 
trumpet  announcing  Christ's  victory  over  sin  and  death 
and  hell,  you  would  rush  forth,  glad  in  the  eternal  deliv- 
erance! The  Waterloo  against  sin  has  been  fought,  and 
our  Commander-in-chief  hath  won  the  day.  O  the  joys 
of  this  salvation !  I  do  not  care  what  metaphor,  what 
comparison  you  have;  bring  it  to  me  that  I  may  use  it. 
Amos  shall  bring  one  simile,  Isaiah  another,  David  anoth- 
er, John  another.  Beautiful  with  pardon.  Beautiful  with 
peace.  Beautiful  with  anticipations.  I  spread  out  the 
heaped-up,  large,  round,  luscious  "basket  of  summer  fruit." 

You  have  noticed  that  if  summer  fruit  is  not  iaJcen  imme- 


A  BASKET  OF  SUMMER  FRVlT.  2-17 

di'atehj,  it  soon  fails.  First,  the  speck;  then  a  multiplica- 
tion of  defects ;  after  a  while  a  softening  that  is  offensive ; 
and  tlien  it  is  all  flung  out.  So  I  have  to  tell  you  that  all 
religious  advantages,  all  Gospel  opportunities,  all  religious 
privileges,  while  they  are  beautiful  and  attractive,  perish 
right  speedily  if  you  do  not  take  them.  I  suppose  you 
have  noticed  how  swiftly  the  days  and  the  years  go  by. 
Every  day  seems  to  me  like  "a  basket  of  summer  fruit;" 
the  morning  sky  is  vermilion,  the  noonday  is  opaline,  the 
evening  cloud  is  fire-dyed.  Every  day  has  its  cluster  of 
blessings  and  its  fruity  branch  of  opportunities.  But  how 
soon  they  are  gone!  Where  is  1873?  1870?  1860? 
1850?  Gone  as  thoroughly  as  the  fruit  which  dropped 
from  the  trees  and  rotted  last  August.  Every  year  may 
have  its  characteristic.  In  one,  the  war  broke  out;  in  an- 
other, the  locusts  made  terrible  ravages ;  in  another,  the 
yellow  fever  raged ;  but  I  care  not  what  be  the  character- 
istics— they  are  all  gone  save  one.  Of  the  six  thousand 
years  of  this  world's  existence,  only  one  is  left.  Ay,  ten 
months  of  that  are  gone,  or  nearly  gone,  and  the  tongue  in 
the  clock  of  the  months  will  soon  strike  twelve,  and  then 
this  year  will  be  as  dead  as  all  its  predecessors.  In  your 
library,  you  put  the  historical  volumes  side  by  side,  volume 
first,  volume  second,  volume  third,  volume  fourth  ;  and  the 
liistory  of  the  past  is  made  up  of  six  thousand  volumes, 
three  hundred  and  sixty-five  pages  in  each  of  the  volumes, 
and  in  the  last  day,  at  one  flash,  you  will  read  all  of  them. 
Time,  how  swiftly  it  goes!  Gray  hairs  are  here  and  there 
upon  you,  and  some  of  you  know  it  not.  The  "crow's- 
foot"  is  walking  nearer  up  toward  the  corner  of  the  eye. 
You  stoop  more  than  you  used  to.  You  have  been  dis- 
cussing as  to  the  propriety  of  wearing  glasses.     You  are 


218  ^  BASKET  OF  SUM3IER  FRUIT. 

going  from  the  thirties  into  the  forties,  and  from  the  for- 
ties into  the  fifties,  and  from  the  fifties  into  the  sixties, 
and  from  the  sixties  into  the  seventies.  The  color  is  go- 
ing out  of  the  "  basket  of  summer  fruit."  The  curcuho  of 
trouble  hath  left  the  mark  of  its  sting.  The  work  of  de- 
cay has  begun,  and  the  full  basket  of  human  life  will  soon 
be  emptied  into  the  trench  of  the  grave.  When  I  first  be- 
came anxious  about  my  soul,  there  was  a  soliloquy  I  read 
in  Mr.  Pike's  "Address  to  the  Unsaved."  It  was  a  solil- 
oquy on  this  very  subject.  It  represented  a  man  dying; 
and,  as  he  was  dying,  the  clock  struck.  As  the  clock 
struck,  the  man  was  startled,  and  he  cried  out,  "  0  Time!  it 
is  fit  that  thou  shouldst  strike  thy  murderer  to  the  heart. 
How  art  thou  gone  forever!  A  month !  Oh  for  a  week! 
I  ask  not  for  a  year,  though  an  age  were  too  short  for 
the  work  I  have  to  do.  Eemorse  for  the  past  throws  my 
thoughts  on  the  future.  Worse  dread  of  the  future  throws 
my  thoughts  on  the  past.  I  turn  and  turn,  and  find  no 
ray.  If  thou  didst  feel  one-half  the  mountain  that  is  on 
my  heart,  thou  wouldst  struggle  with  the  martyr  for  his 
stake,  and  bless  Heaven  for  the  flame :  that  is  not  an  un- 
quenchable fire.  O  thou  blasphemed  yet  most  indulgent 
.Lord  God !  hell  itself  is  a  refuge,  if  it  hide  me  from  thy 
frown !" 

Still  further,  I  remark  upon  the  perishable  nature  of  all 
religious  surroundings.  You  sometimes  go  into  a  relig- 
ious association,  and  3'ou  say,  "Isn't  this  beautiful?  How 
many  ripe,  religious  experiences!  Wh}^,  it  is  like  'a  bas- 
ket of  summer  fruit.'  "  But  do  you  not  know,  my  brother, 
that  all  these  Christian  associations  fade  away  from  the 
soul  ?  Your  Christian  father  and  mother  who  have  been 
holding  beneficent  influences  over  you,  do  you  not  realize 


A  BASKET  OF  SUMMER  FRUIT.  249 

tbey  are  going  away  from  you  ?  Do  you  not  notice  that 
tbey  do  not  get  over  sickness  as  soon  as  they  used  to? 
Are  you  not  aware  of  the  fact  that  they  do  not  get  over  a 
cold  as  quickly  as  once  ?  The  fact  is  that  they  have  made 
more  prayers  for  you  than  they  will  ever  make  again. 
They  have  passed  the  last  mile-stone  on  the  road  home ; 
and  if  you  are  going  to  get  any  benefit  from  that  "basket 
of  summer  fruit,"  get  it  now,  or  get  it  never.  Some  of 
you  do  not  know  what  it  is  to  stand  and  look  down  upon 
the  still  and  rigid  features  of  a  Christian  father  or  a  Chris- 
tian mother.  I  do.  In  five  minutes  you  will  think  of  all 
the  unkind  words  you  ever  said  to  them.  You  may  cover 
up  the  coffin  with  wreaths  and  crosses  and  crowns  ;  but 
you  can  not  make  any  thing  attractive  out  of  it.  It  is 
trouble,  and  nothing;  but  trouble,  for  those  who  sit  and  sijih 
with  the  consciousness  that  those  dear  lips  will  never  pray 
for  you  again,  and  those  lips  will  never  sympathize  wilh 
you  again.  When  you  stoop  down  and  kiss  for  the  last 
time  the  wrinkled  brow  just  before  the  lid  is  screwed  on, 
you  will  think  of  what  I  tell  you  to-night.  Oh,  if  father 
and  mother  be  still  alive  with  their  Christian  influences, 
cherish  them  while  you  may.  Take  their  example.  Be 
profited  by  their  prayers.  The}''  are  ripe  for  heaven,  and 
can  not  stay.  The  "basket  of  summer  fruit"  will  soon  be 
gone. 

So,  also,  it  is,  my  friends,  with  all  God's  offers  of  mer- 
cy and  salvation.  Are  you  to-night  under  the  infatuation 
that  those  privileges  are  going  to  be  continued?  Oh  no  I 
Every  opportunity  of  salvation  seems  to  be  restless  until 
it  gets  away  from  us.  Going  away,  the  sermons;  going 
away,  the  songs;  going  awny,  the  strivings  of  God's  eter- 
nal Spirit.     The  fruits  of  immortal  life,  fair  and  luscious, 

11- 


250  A  BASKET  OF  SU2IMEIt  FRUIT. 

are  no  sooner  set  before  the  soul  than  thej^  disappear.  The 
Theban  legion  consisted  of  six  thousand  six  hundred  and 
sixty -six  men.  Maximian  decreed  that  that  host  should 
be  decimated  —  that  is,  every  tenth  man  should  be  put  to 
the  sword.  So  it  was  done  ;  but  the  soldiers  did  not  sub- 
mit to  the  kingly  authority,  and  so  another  decimation, 
took  place,  and  the  work  went  on  until  all  of  the  six  thou- 
sand six  hundred  and  sixty-six  men  had  perished.  Now, 
I  do  not  know  how  many  people  may  be  in  this  house  to- 
night, but  it  is  an  army.  It  is  going  to  be  decimated. 
One  out  of  every  ten  will  soon  be  gone,  and  after  that  the 
work  will  go  on  ;  and  again  one  out  of  every  ten  will  be 
gone,  and  again  the  decimation  will  take  place,  until  not  a 
single  person  in  this  house  to-night  will  be  alive.  Our 
bodies,  some  of  them,  will  be  in  Greenwood,  in  Laurel 
Hill,  in  Mount  Auburn,  in  Oaklands,  in  Grey  Friars  Church- 
yard, in  the  villnge  cemetery;  but  your  souls  will  be  in 
one  of  two  places,  the  names  of  which  I  need  not  mention, 
for  they  rush  upon  you  this  moment  with  thunderous  ar- 
ticulation and  emphasis. 

Many  have  missed  their  chance.  Now,  there  is  no  hid- 
ing that  fact — they  have  missed  their  chance.  They  came 
in  and  looked  at  the  "basket  of  summer  fruit."  They  ad- 
mired the  gracefulness  of  the  wicker-work,  the  delicacy 
of  the  rind,  the  greenness  of  the  leaves.  They  went  off. 
They  came  back  and  admired  again.  But  one  day  they 
came,  and  they  found  that  all  the  glory  had  faded,  and  that 
the  fruit  had  been  thrown  out.  They  came  to  a  certain 
evening.  They  saw  the  sun  set.  They  never  saw  the  sun 
rise  again.  The  pastor  pronounced  upon  them  the  bene- 
diction. It  was  the  Inst  benediction  they  ever  beard. 
They  took  their  last  step,  missed  their  last  chance.     Fort- 


A  BASKET  OF  SUJIJILVi  FJiUIT.  251 

unntcly  for  us,  tbcir  voice  is  not  strong  enougli  to  ring  up 
until  we  can  bear  it,  or  it  would  make  life  on  earth  intol- 
erable with  tbe  wailing.  The  wall  is  so  tbiek  tbat  we  bear 
not  one  word  of  tbcir  pang.  Perisbed!  Perisbed!  Tbey 
talk  no  more  about  tbere  being  time  enough  yet.  Tbey 
have  no  time.  Tbey  woi'ry  no  longer  about  the  inconsist- 
encies of  Cliristians ;  tbey  are  looking  after  their  own  con- 
dition. They  no  more  argue  tbat  tbere  is  no  such  a  thing 
as  a  lost  soul ;  they  have  felt  the  pang  tbat  comes  from  a 
fall  ten  thousand  fathoms  down.  0  skeptical  man,  go  out 
and  persuade  them  that  tbere  is  no  retribution  for  a  soul 
that  forgets  Gtxl.  Break  open  the  gate;  dash  through  the 
fire;  leap  the  intervening  cliff,  and  cry  out  tt)  tbcm, 
"Tbere  is  no  bell!"  and  ten  thousand  voices  will  answer 
back,  "Tbere  is.  See  you  not  tbe  gate?  Feel  you  not 
tbe  sorrow?  We  have  been  here  five  hundred  3'cars,  and 
yet  tbe  woe  has  just  begun.  Go  back  and  tell  all  you  have 
seen.  Tell  them  that  we  once  were  as  they  are,  and  that 
tbc}^,  unless  tbey  repent,  shall  be  as  we  are  ourselves.  We 
had  tbe  fruits  of  life  set  before  us,  fair  as  'a  basket  of  sum- 
mer fruit ;'  but  we  would  not  take  them,  and  we  everlast- 
ingly died." 

My  friends,  tbe  practical  question  is  now.  Will  you  miss 
your  chance?  Tbe  offer  of  salvation  is  now  extended  to 
us.  It  will  not  always  be  continued.  Tbe  day  of  grace 
will  be  past.  The  ])robal)ility  is  that  there  are  some  in 
this  audience  who  will  miss  their  opportunity.  I  put  my 
hand  on  your  pulse,  and  I  find  tliat  the  fever  has  begun.  I 
look  upon  your  brow,  and  I  find  tiic  shadow  of  impending 
doom.  I  listen  to  3'our  breath,  and  I  Ibid  it  is  suggestive 
of  the  last  gasj).  Some  of  you  will  be  lost!  See!  you  are 
falling  now — down  from  heaven,  from  life,  from  peace — ■ 


252  ^  BASKET  OF  SUMMER  FRUIT. 

down,  down.  I  remember  reading  how  Leonidas,  with 
three  hundred  men,  stood  in  the  pass  between  (Eta  and  the 
sea,  fighting  haok  the  Persian  hosts.  The  Persian  hosts 
came  on.  They  trampled  him  down.  Oh  that  God,  to- 
night, would  arm  me,  a  poor  weak  man,  with  a  supernatu- 
ral courage  to  stand  in  the  pass  of  this  glorious  Sabbath 
hour,  and  dispute  with  this  army  that  I  see  before  me  the 
way  to  death.  Halt!  3^6  infatuated  souls.  I  swing  the 
two-edged  sword  both  ways.  Halt!  Halt!  Take  not  one 
step  more  on  this  downward  path.  Why  will  ye  die,  when 
there  is  no  use  in  it?  Are  you  so  charmed  with  pain,  and 
sin,  and  sorrow,  and  woe,  that  you  will  wade  through  the 
foaming  billows  of  perdition  to  win  them?  Is  there  noth- 
ing in  the  S3'mpathetic  tears  of  friends,  nothing  in  the  sac- 
rificial blood  of  the  Son  of  God,  nothing  in  the  death-bed 
experiences  of  those  whom  you  have  loved,  nothing  in  the 
crash  of  the  judgment  avalanche,  to  make  you  think? 

I  must  tell  you  plainly  that  your  idea  that  there  is  time 
enough  yet  is  a  delusion  wild  and  terrific.  If  some  of  you 
knew  how  little  time  there  is  left  to  you,  you  would  not 
wait  until  the  close  of  this  service.  Your  breath  will  stop 
before  you  are  ready.  Death  will  meet  you  before  you 
have  a  cloak  to  keep  out  the  chill,  or  a  lantern  to  light  the 
way,  or  a  dragoman  to  speak  out  for  you.  You  will  be 
silenced,  with  ten  thousand  things  to  say;  you  will  be 
speechless ;  and  in  the  convulsions  of  this  American  con- 
tinent, when  the  Alleghanies  shall  roll  over  into  the  At- 
lantic, and  the  Rocky  Mountains  shall  roll  over  into  the 
Pacific,  amidst  the  rifts  and  crevices  of  disorganized  nature, 
there  will  be  no  place  where  you  can  secrete  yourself, 
though  with  blanched  cheek,  and  flying  hair,  and  uplifted 
hand,  and  outcry^ing  voice,  you  say,  "Rocks  and  mountains 


A  BASKET  OF  HUMMER  FRUIT.  253 

fall  on  me.  and  hide  me  from  the  face  of  Ilim  that  sitteth 
upon  the  throne,  and  fi'om  the  wrath  of  the  Lamb,  for  the 
great  day  of  his  wrath  has  come,  and  who,  icJio  shall  be 
able  to  stand  ?" 

I  can  tell  from  the  way  the  country  sexton  rings  the 
bell  when  he  is  about  to  stop  ringing  it.  When  be  begins 
to  ring,  the  music  comes  softly  out  on  the  air ;  the  bell 
fills  all  the  air  with  music.  He  lays  hold  with  strong  pull ; 
but  after  a  while,  when  the  horses  have  been  tied,  and  the 
people  have  gathered,  then  there  is  some  distance  of  time 
between  the  strokes  of  the  bell.  It  gets  slower  and  slower, 
for  he  has  begun  to  toll,  and  after  a  while  it  stops.  O  sin- 
ner! how  swiftly  the  invitations  of  the  Gospel  came  to 
you!  Call  after  call.  Invitation  after  invitation.  Floods 
of  them.  How  merrily  the  bell  did  ring  I  But  it  seems  as 
if,  with  some  of  you,  God's  patience  is  exhausted ;  as  if  his 
mercy  were  almost  gone.  The  bell  rings  more  slowly  to- 
night than  it  ever  rang  before,  and  as  if  about  to  stop.  Ay, 
it  seems  to  have  come  to  the  dying  toll.  Thrice  more  it 
will  speak — perhaps  only  thrice.     Toll !     Toll !     Toll ! 

It  was  to  set  forth  this  solemn  truth,  that  religious  ad- 
vantages, while  they  last,  are  attractive,  but  very  soon 
leave  us,  that  God  let  down  to  Amos,  the  herdsman,  in 
vision  the  beautiful  but  perishable  basket  of  summer  fruit. 


25-i  THE  LAST  ACT  OF  THE  TJiAGEDT. 


THE  LAST  ACT  OF  THE  TKAGEDY. 

"And  the  people  stood  beholding." — Luke  xxiii.,  35. 

THERE  is  nothing  more  wild  and  ungovernable  than  a 
mob.  Some  of  the  older  people  in  the  audience  may 
remember  the  excitement  in  New  York  dui'ing  the  riot 
when  the  people  went  howling  through  the  streets  at  the 
time  Macready  stood  on  the  stage  of  the  Astor  Place  Opera- 
house.  Those  of  you  who  have  read  history  may  remem- 
ber the  excitement  in  Paris  during  the  time  of  Louis  XVL, 
and  how  the  mob  rushed  up  and  down  franticall3^  To 
this  day  you  may  see  the  marks  of  the  bullets  that  struck 
the  palace  as  the  Swiss  Guards  stood  defending  it. 

There  is  a  wild  mob  going  through  the  streets  of  Jerusa- 
lem. As  it  passes  along,  it  is  augmented  by  the  multitudes 
that  come  out  from  the  lanes  and  the  alleys  to  join  the  shouts 
and  the  laughter  and  the  lamentation  of  the  rioters,  who  be- 
come more  and  more  ungovernable  as  they  get  toward  the 
gates  of  the  city.  Fishermen,  vagabonds,  rude  women, 
grave  officials,  merchant  princes,  beggars,  mingle  in  that 
crowd.  They  are  passing  out  now  through  the  gates  of  the 
city.  They  come  to  a  hill  white  with  the  bleached  skulls  of 
victims — a  hill  that  was  itself  the  shape  of  a  skull,  covered 
with  skulls,  and  called  Golgotha,  which  means  the  place 
of  a  skull.  Three  men  are  to  be  put  to  death — two  for 
theft,  one  for  treason,  having  claimed  to  be  King  of  the 
Jews.  Each  one  cari-ies  his  own  cross,  but  one  of  them  is 
so  exhausted  from  previous  hardship  that  he  faints  under 


THE  LAST  ACT  OF  THE  TliAGEDY.  255 

the  burden,  and  they  compel  Simon  of  Cyrenc,  who  is  sup- 
posed to  be  in  sympathy  with  the  condemned  man,  to  take 
hold  of  one  end  of  the  cross  and  help  him  to  carry  it. 
Tlicy  reach  the  hilL  The  three  men  are  lifted  in  horrid 
crucifixion.  While  the  mob  are  howling  and  mocking, 
and  hurling  scorn  at  the  chief  object  of  their  hate,  the  dai'lc- 
ness  hovers  and  scowls  and  swoops  upon  the  scene,  and  the 
rocks  rend  with  terrific  clang;  and  the  choking  wind,  and 
moaning  cavern,  and  dropping  sk}'-,  and  shuddering  earth- 
quake declare,  in  whisper,  in  groan,  in  shriek,  "This  is  the 
Son  of  God!" 

I  propose  to  speak  of  the  two  grouj)S  of  spectators  around 
the  cross — the.  friendly  and  the  unfriendly.  In  the  unfriend- 
ly group  were  the  Roman  soldiers.  Now,  it  is  a  grand 
thing  to  serve  one's  country.  There  is  not  an  Englishman's 
heart  but  thrills  at  the  name  of  Havelock,  brave  for  Christ 
and  brave  for  the  British  Government.  When  there  was 
a  difficult  point  to  take,  the  officers  would  say,  "Bring 
out  the  saints  of  old  Ilavelock."  I  think  if  Paul  had  gone 
into  military  service,  he  would  have  eclipsed  the  heroism 
of  the  Cassars  and  the  Alexanders  and  the  Napoleons  of 
the  world  by  his  bravery  and  enthusiasm.  There  is  a  time 
to  be  at  peace,  and  there  is  a  time  when  a  Christian  has  to 
fight.  I  do  not  know  of  a  graver  or  braver  thing  than  for 
a  young  man,  when  it  is  demanded  of  hirn,  to  turn  his  back 
upon  home  and  quiet  and  luxury,  and  in  the  service  of  his 
country  go  forth  to  camp  and  field,  and  carnage  and  mar- 
tyrdom. It  was  no  mean  thing  to  be  a  Roman  soldier;  it 
was  no  idle  thing.  You  know  what  revolutions  dashed  up 
against  the  walls  of  that  empire.  You  know  to  what  con- 
quest she  devoted  herself,  flinging  her  war-eagles  against 
the  proudest  ensigns.      But  the  noblest  army  has  in  it 


256  THE  LAST  ACT  OF  THE  TRAGEDY. 

sneaks,  and  these  were  the  n:ien  who  were  detailed  from 
that  army  to  attend  to  the  execution  of  Christ.  Their 
dastardly  behavior  puts  out  the  gleam  of  their  spears,  and 
covers  their  banner  with  obloquy.  They  were  cowards. 
They  were  ruffians.  They  were  gamblers.  No  noble  sol- 
dier would  treat  a  fallen  foe  as  they  treated  the  captured 
Christ. 

Generally  there  is  respect  paid  to  the  garments  of  the 
departed.  It  may  be  only  a  hat  or  coat  or  a  shoe,  but 
it  goes  down  in  the  family  wardrobe  from  generation  to 
generation.  Now  that  Qhrist  is  to  be  disrobed,  who  shall 
have  his  coat  ?  Joseph  of  Arimathea  would  have  liked  to 
have  had  it.  Mary,  the  mother  of  Jesus,  would  have  liked 
to  have  had  it.  How  fondly  she  would  have  hovered  over 
it  I  and  when  she  must  leave  it,  with  what  tenderness  she 
would  have  bequeathed  it  to  her  best  friend !  It  was  the 
only  covering  of  Christ  in  darkness  and  storm.  That  was 
the  very  coat  that  the  woman  touched  when  from  it  there 
went  out  virtue  for  her  healing.  That  was  the  only  wed- 
ding-garment he  had  in  the  marriage  at  Cana,  and  the 
storms  that  swept  Galilee  had  drenched  it  again  and  again. 
And  what  did  they  do  with  it?  They  raffled  for  it.  We 
have  heard  of  men  who  gambled  away  their  own  garments, 
who  gambled  away  their  children's  shoes,  who  gambled 
away  the  family  Bible,  who  gambled  away  their  wife's  last 
dress;  but  it  adds  to  the  ghastliness  of  a  Saviour's  humilia- 
tion and  the  horror  of  the  crime,  when  I  hear  Jesus  in  his 
last  moments  declaring,  "  They  parted  my  garments  among 
them,  and  for  my  vesture  did  they  cast  lots." 

In  this  unfriendly  group  around  the  cross,  also,  were  the 
rulers  and  the  scribes  and  the  chief  priests.  Lawyers  and 
judges  and  ministers  of  religion  in  this  day  are  expected 


THE  LAST  ACT  OF  TEE  TRAGEDY.  257 

to  have  some  respect  for  their  offices.  In  this  land,  where 
the  honors  of  the  judiciary  sometimes  come  to  besotted 
politicians  and  men  noted  for  drunkenness — even  in  this 
land  where  we  live,  it  is  an  unheard-of  thing  that  a  judge 
comes  down  from  the  bench  and  strikes  a  prisoner  in  the 
face.  No  minister  of  religion  would  scoff  at  or  mock  a 
condemned  criminal.  And  yet  the  great  men  of  that  land 
seemed  to  be  equal  to  any  ruffianism.  They  were  vying 
with  each  other  as  to  how  much  scorn  and  billingsgate 
they  could  cast  into  the  teeth  of  the  dying  Christ.  Why, 
the  worst  felon,  when  his  enemy  has  fallen,  refuses  to 
strike  him.  But  these  men  were  not  ashamed  to  strike 
Jesus  when  he  was  down. 

So  it  has  been  in  all  ages  of  the  world,  that  there  have 
been  men  in  high  positions  who  despised  Christ  and  his 
Gospel.  What  popes  have  issued  their  anathemas!  What 
judgment -seats  have  kindled  their  fires!  What  inqui- 
sitions have  sharpened  their  swords !  "  Not  this  man, 
but  Barabbas.  Now  Barabbas  was  a  robber."  Against 
the  Christian  religion  have  been  brought  the  historical 
genius  of  Gibbon,  and  the  polish  of  Shaftesbury,  and  the 
kingly  authority  of  Frederick  of  Prussia,  and  the  brill- 
iancy of  John  Earl  of  Eochester,  and  the  stupendous  in- 
tellect of  Voltaire.  Innumerable  pens  have  stabbed  it, 
and  innumerable  books  have  cursed  it,  and  that  mob  that 
hounded  Christ  from  Jerusalem  to  "the  place  of  a  skull" 
has  never  been  dispersed,  but  is  augmenting  yet,  as  many 
of  the  learned  men  of  the  world  and  great  men  of  the 
world  come  out  from  their  studios  and  their  laboratories 
and  their  palaces,  and  cry,  "Away  with  this  man !  away 
with  him!"  The  most  bitter  hostility  which  many  of 
the   learned    men  of  this   day  exercise   in   any  direction 


258  THE  LAIST  ACT  OF  THE  TRAGEDY. 

they  exercise  against  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  the 
Saviour  of  the  world,  without  whom  we  will  die  for- 
ever. 

In  this  group  of  enemies  surrounding  the  cross,  in  this 
unfriendly  group,  I  also  find  the  railing  thief.  It  seems 
that  he  twisted  himself  on  the  spikes;  he  forgot  his  own 
pain  in  his  complete  antipathy  to  Jesus.  I  do  not  know 
what  kind  of  a  thief  he  was.  I  do  not  know  whether  he 
had  been  a  burglar  or  a  pickpocket  or  a  highwayman ; 
but  our  idea  of  his  crimes  is  aggravated  when  we  hear 
him  blaspheming  the  Redeemer.  0  shame  indescribable ! 
O  ignominy  unsupportable !  Hissed  at  by  a  thief!  In 
that  ridicule  I  find  the  fact  that  there  is  a  hostility  be- 
tween sin  and  holiness.  There  can  not  be,  there  never  has 
been,  any  sympathy  between  honesty  and  theft,  between 
purity  and  lasciviousness,  between  zeal  and  indolence,  be- 
tween faith  and  unbelief,  between  light  and  darkness,  be- 
tween heaven  and  hell.  And  when  I  see  a  good  man  go- 
ing out  to  discharge  his  duty,  and  he  is  enthusiastic  for 
Christ,  and  I  see  persecution  after  him,  and  scorn  after  him, 
and  contempt  after  him,  I  say,  "  Hark !  another  hiss  of  the 
dying  thief!"  And  when  I  see  Holiness  going  forth  in  her 
white  robes,  and  Charity,  with  great  heart  and  open  hand, 
to  take  care  of  the  sick  and  help  the  needy  and  restore  the 
lost,  and  I  find  her  lashed  with  hypercriticism,  and  jostled. 
of  the  world,  and  pursued  from  point  to  point,  and  carica- 
tured with  low  witticisms,  I  say,  "Aha!  another  hiss  of 
the  dying  thief!" 

It  is  a  sad  thing  to  know  that  this  malefactor  died  just 
as  he  had  lived.  People  nearly  always  do.  Have  you 
never  remarked  that?  There  is  but  one  instance  men- 
tioned in  all  the  Bible  of  a  man  repenting  in  the  last 


THE  LAST  ACT  OF  THE  TRAGEDY.  259 

hour.  All  the  other  men  who  lived  lives  of  iniquity,  as 
far  as  we  can  understand  from  the  Bible,  died  deaths  of 
iniquity.  If  you  live  a  drunkard's  life,  you  will  die  a 
drunkard ;  the  defrauder  dies  a  defrauder ;  the  idler  dies 
an  idler ;  the  blasphemer  dies  a  blasphemer ;  the  slan- 
derer dies  a  slanderer;  the  debauchee  dies  a  debauchee. 
As  you  live,  you  will  die,  in  all  probability.  Do  not, 
therefore,  make  your  soul  believe  that  you  can  go  on  in  a 
course  of  sin,  and  then  in  the  last  moment  repent.  There 
is  such  a  thing  as  death-bed  repentance,  but  I  never  saw 
one — I  never  saw  one.  God  in  all  this  Bible  presents  us 
only  one  case  of  that  kind,  and  it  is  not  safe  to  risk  it,  lest 
our  case  should  happen  not  to  be  the  one  amidst  ten  thou- 
sand. 

"  Repent !  the  voice  celestial  cries, 
No  longer  dare  delay  ; 
The  wretch  that  scorns  the  mandate  dies, 
And  meets  the  fiery  day." 

But  there  were  rays  of  light  that  streamed  into  the  cru- 
cifixion. As  Christ  was  on  the  cross  and  looked  down  on 
the  crowd  of  people,  he  saw  some  very  warm  friends  there. 
And  that  brings  me  to  the  remarking  upon  the  friendly 
group  that  were  around  the  cross. 

The  first  in  all  that  crowd  was  his  mother.  You  need 
rot  point  her  out  to  me.  I  can  see  by  the  sorrow,  the  an- 
guish, the  woe,  by  the  upthrowm  hands !  That  all  means 
mother  I  "  Oh,"  you  say,  "  why  didn't  she  go  down  to  the 
foot  of  the  hill,  and  sit  with  her  back  to  the  scene?  It  was 
too  horrible  for  her  to  look  upon."  Do  you  not  know, 
when  a  child  is  in  anguish  or  trouble,  it  always  makes  a 
heroine  of  a  mother?  Take  her  away,  you  say,  from  the 
cross.    You  can  not  drag  her  away.    She  will  keep  on  look- 


260  THE  LAST  ACT  OF  THE  TRAGEDY. 

ing ;  as  long  as  her  son  breathes,  she  will  stand  there  look- 
ing. "What  a  scene  it  is  for  a  tender-hearted  mother  to  look 
upon !  How  gladly  she  would  have  sprung  to  his  relief! 
It  was  her  son.  Her  son !  How  gladly  she  would  have 
clambered  up  on  the  cross  and  hung  there  herself  if  her 
son  could  have  been  relieved!  How  strengthening  she 
would  have  been  to  Christ  if  she  might  have  come  close 
by  him  and  soothed  him !  There  was  a  good  deal  in 
what  the  little  sick  child  said,  upon  whom  a  surgical  op- 
eration of  a  painful  nature  must  be  performed  !  The  doc- 
tor said,  "That  child  won't  live  through  this  operation  un- 
less you  encourage  him.  You  go  in,  and  get  his  consent." 
The  father  told  him  all  the  doctor  said,  and  added,  "Now, 
John,  will  you  go  through  with  it?  Will  you  consent  to 
it?"  He  looked  very  pale,  and  he  thought  a  minute,  and 
said,  "Yes,  father,  if  you  will  hold  my  hand,  I  will  1"  So 
the  father  held  his  hand,  and  led  him  straight  through  the 
peril.  O  woman  !  in  your  hour  of  anguish,  whom  do  you 
want  with  you?  Mother.  Young  man,  in  3^our  hour  of 
trouble,  whom  do  you  want  to  console  you  ?  Mother.  If 
the  mother  of  Jesus  could  have  only  taken  those  bleeding 
feet  into  her  lap  !  If  she  might  have  taken  the  dying  head 
on  her  bosom !  If  she  might  have  said  to  him,  "  It  will 
soon  be  over,  Jesus  —  it  will  soon  be  over,  and  we  will 
meet  again,  and  it  will  be  all  well."  But  no;  she  dared 
not  come  up  so  close.  They  would  have  struck  her  back 
with  their  hammers.  They  would  have  kicked  her  down 
the  hill.  There  can  be  no  alleviation  at  all.  Jesus  must 
suffer,  and  Mary  must  look.  I  suppose  she  thought  of  the 
birth-hour  in  Bethlehem.  I  suppose  she  thought  of  that 
time  when,  with  her  boy  in  her  bosom,  she  hastened  on  in 
the  darkness  in  the  flight  toward  Egypt.     I  suppose  she 


THE  LAST  ACT  OF  THE  TRAGEDY.  201 

thought  of  his  boyhood  when  ho  was  the  joy  of  her  heart. 
I  suppose  she  thouglit  of  the  thousand  kindnesses  he  had 
done  her,  not  forsaking  her,  or  forgetting  her  even  in  his 
last  moments;  but  turning  to  John,  and  saying,  "There 
is  mother;  take  her  with  you.  She  is  old  now.  She  can 
not  help  herself.  Do  for  her  just  as  I  would  have  done 
for  her  if  I  had  lived.  Be  very  tender  and  gentle  with 
her.  Behold  thy  mother!"  She  thought  it  all  over,  and 
there  is  no  memory  like  a  mother's  memory,  and  there  is 
no  woe  like  a  mother's  woe. 

There  was  another  friend  in  that  group,  and  that  was 
Simon  the  Cyrenian.  He  was  a  stranger  in  the  land,  but 
had  been  longr  enouo'h  there  to  show  his  favoritism  for 
Christ.  I  suppose  he  was  one  of  those  men  who  never 
can  see  any  body  imposed  upon  but  he  wants  to  help  him. 
"Well,  Simon,"  they  cried  out,  "you  are  such  a  friend  to 
Jesus,  help  him  to  carry  the  cross.  You  see  him  fainting 
under  it."  So  he  did.  A  scene  for  all  the  ages  of  time 
and  all  the  cycles  of  eternity;  a  cross  with  Jesus  at  the 
one  end  of  it  and  Simon  at  the  other,  suggesting  the  idea 
to  you,  O  troubled  soul !  that  no  one  need  ever  carry  a 
whole  cross.  You  have  only  half  a  cross  to  carry.  If  you 
are  in  poverty,  Jesus  was  poor,  and  he  comes  and  takes 
the  other  end  of  the  cross.  If  you  are  in  persecution, 
Jesus  was  persecuted,  and  he  comes  and  takes  the  other 
end  of  the  cross.  If  you  are  in  any  kind  of  trouble,  you 
have  a  sympathizing  Redeemer.  Oh,  how  the  truth 
flashed  upon  my  soul  this  morning!  Jesus  at  one  end  of 
the  cross  and  the  soul  at  the  other  end  of  the  cross;  and 
when  I  see  Christ  and  Simon  going  up  the  hill  together, 
I  say  we  ought  to  help  each  other  to  carry  our  burdens. 
"  Bear  ye  one  another's  burdens,  and  so  fulfill  the  law  of 


262  THE  LAST  ACT  OF  THE  TRAGEDY. 

Christ."  If  you  find  a  man  in  persecution  or  sickness  or 
in  business  trouble,  go  right  to  him,  and  say,  "  My  brother, 
I  have  come  to  help  you.  You  take  hold  of  one  end  of 
the  cross,  and  I  will  take  hold  of  the  other  end  of  the 
cross,  and  Jesus  Christ  will  come  in  and  take  hold  of  the 
middle  of  the  cross;  and  after  a  while  there  will  be  no 
cross  at  all." 

"  Shall  Jesus  bear  the  cross  alone, 
And  all  the  world  go  free  ? 
No ;  there  is  a  cross  for  every  one, 
And  there  is  a  cross  for  me." 

But  there  was  another  marked  personage  in  that  friend- 
ly group.  That  was  the  penitent  malefactor.  He  was  a 
thief,  or  had  been — no  disguising  that  fact.  What  was  he 
to  do?  "Oh!"  he  says,  "what  shall  I  do  with  my  sins 
upon  me?"  and  he  looks  around  and  sees  Jesus,  and  sees 
compassion  in  his  face,  and  he  says,  "Lord,  remember  me 
when  thou  comest  into  thy  kingdom."  What  did  Jesus 
do?  Did  he  turn  and  say,  "You  thief!  I  have  seen  all 
your  crimes,  and  you  have  jeered  and  scoffed  at  me  ;  now 
die  forever!" — did  he  say  that?  Oh  no;  Jesus  could  not 
say  that.  He  says,  "This  day  shalt  thou  be  with  me  in 
paradise."  I  sing  the  song  of  mercy  for  the  chief  of  sin- 
ners. Murderers  have  come  and  plunged  their  red  hands 
in  this  fountain,  and  they  have  been  made  as  white  as 
snow.  The  prodigal  that  was  off  for  twenty  years  has 
come  back  and  sat  at  his  father's  table.  The  ship  that  has 
been  tossed  in  a  thousand  storms  floats  into  this  harbor. 
The  parched  and  sun-struck  soul  comes  under  the  shadow 
of  this  rock.  Tens  of  thousands  who  were  as  bad  as  you 
and  I  have  ever  been  have  put  down  their  burdens  and 
their  sins  at  the  feet  of  this  blessed  Jesus. 


THE  LAST  ACT  OF  THE  TRAGEDY.  263 

"The  dying  tliief  icjoiccd  to  see 

That  fountain  in  his  day ; 

And  tliere  may  I,  as  vile  as  he, 

Wash  all  my  sins  away. " 

But  there  was  another  friendly  group.  I  do  not  know 
their  names  —  we  are  not  told;  but  we  are  simply  told 
there  were  many  around  the  cross  who  sympathized  witli 
the  dying  suiFerer.  Oh  !  the  wail  of  woe  that  went  through 
that  crowd  when  they  saw  Jesus  die!  You  know  the 
Bible  says  if  all  the  things  Jesus  did  were  recorded,  the 
world  would  not  contain  the  books  that  would  be  wi'itten. 
It  implies  that  what  we  have  in  the  Bible  are  merely  spec- 
imens of  the  Saviour's  mercy.  We  are  told  that  one  blind 
man  got  his  eye-sight.  I  suppose  he  cured  twenty  that  we 
are  not  told  of.  When  he  cured  the  one  leper  whose  story 
is  recorded,  he  might  have  cured  twenty  lepers.  Where 
he  did  one  act  of  kindness  mentioned,  he  must  have  done 
a  thousand  we  do  not  know  about.  I  see  those  who  re- 
ceived kindnesses  from  him  standing  beneath  the  cross, 
and  one  says,  "  Why,  that  is  the  Jesus  that  bound  up  my 
broken  heart!"  And  another,  standing  beneath  the  cross, 
says,  "That  is  the  Jesus  that  restored  my  daughter  to  life." 
Another  looks  up,  and  says,  "Why,  that  is  Jesus  who 
gave  me  my  eye-sight!"  And  another  looks  up,  and  says, 
"  That  is  the  Jesus  who  lifted  me  up  when  I  was  sick ;  oh, 
I  can't  bear  to  see  him  die!"  Every  pelt  of  the  hammer 
drove  a  spike  through  their  hearts.  Every  groan  of  Christ 
opens  a  new  fountain  of  sorrow.  They  had  better  get  on 
with  that  crucifixion  quickl}'-,  or  it  will  never  take  place. 
These  disciples  will  seize  Christ  and  snatch  him  from  the 
grasp  of  those  bad  men,  and  take  those  ringleaders  of  the 
persecution  and  put  them  up  in  the  very  place.     Be  quick 


26i  THE  LAST  ACT  OF  THE  TRAGEDY. 

with  those  nails!  Be  quick  with  that  gall!  Be  quick 
with  those  spikes!  for  I  see  in  the  sorrow  and  the  wrath  of. 
those  disciples  a  storm  brewing  that  will  burst  on  the  heads 
of  those  persecutors. 

To-day  we  come  and  we  join  the  friendly  crowd.  Who 
wants  to  be  on  the  wrong  side  ?  I  can  not  bear  to  be  in 
the  unfriendly  group.  There  is  not  a  man  or  woman  in 
this  house  who  wants  to  be  in  the  unfriendly  group.  I 
want  to  join  the  other  group.  We  come  while  they  are  be- 
v/ailing,  and  join  their  lamentations.  We  see  that  brow 
bruised  ;  we  hear  that  dying  groan  ;  and  while  the  priests 
scoff  and  the  devils  rave  and  the  lightnings  of  God's  wrath 
are  twisted  into  a  wreath  for  that  bloody  mount,  you  and 
I  will  join  the  cry,  the  supplication,  of  the  penitent  mal- 
efactor, "Lord,  remember  me  when  thou  comest  into  thy 
kingdom."  Oh !  the  pain,  the  ignominy,  the  ghastliness, 
the  agony !  and  yet  the  joy,  the  thrilling,  bounding,  glorious 
hope !     Son  of  Mary  !     Son  of  God  ! 

Is  there  one  here  who  will  reject  this  atonement  made 
for  the  people — not  for  one  man  here  and  one  man  there, 
but  for  all  who  will  accept  it? 

There  was  a  very  touching  scene  among  an  Indian  tribe 
in  the  last  century.  It  seemed  that  one  of  the  chieftains 
had  slain  a  man  belonging  to  an  opposite  tribe,  and  that 
tribe  came  up,  and  said,  "  We  will  exterminate  you,  unless 
you  surrender  the  man  who  committed  that  crime."  The 
chieftain  who  did  the  crime  stepped  out  from  the  ranks, 
and  said,  "I  am  not  afraid  to  die;  but  I  have  a  wife  and 
four  children,  and  I  have  a  father  aged,  and  a  mother  aged, 
whom  I  support  by  hunting,  and  I  sorrow  to  leave  them 
helpless."  Just  as  he  said  that,  his  old  father  from  behind 
stepped  out,  and  said,  "He  shall  not  die.     I  take  his  place. 


THE  LA.ST  A(*T  OF  THE  TRAGEDY.  265 

I  am  old  and  well  stricken  in  years.  I  can  do  no  good.  I 
might  as  well  die.  My  days  are  almost  over.  He  can  not 
be  sjiarcd.  Take  me."  And  tliey  accepted  the  sacrifice. 
AVonderful  sacrifice,  yoa  say;  but  not  so  wonderful  as  that 
found  in  the  Gospel ;  for  we  deserved  to  die,  ay,  we  were 
sentenced,  when  Christ,  not  worn  out  with  j^cars,  but  in 
the  flush  of  his  youth,  said,  "  Save  that  man  from  going 
down  to  the  pit.  I  am  the  ransom  1  Put  his  burdens  on 
my  shoulders.  Let  his  stripes  fall  on  my  back.  Take  my 
heart  for  his  heart.  Let  me  die,  that  he  may  live."  ShaH 
it  be  told  to-day  in  heaven  that,  notwithstanding  all  those 
wounds,  and  all  that  blood,  and  all  those  tears,  and  all  that 
agony,  you  would  not  accept  him? 

"Well  miglit  the  sun  in  Jaikncss  hide 
And  shut  his  glories  in, 
When  Christ,  the  mighty  maker,  died 
For  man,  the  creature's  sin. 

"Thus  might  I  hide  my  blushing  face 
While  his  dear  cross  appears, 
Dissolve  my  heart  in  thankfulness, 
And  melt  my  eyes  to  tears. 

"But  drops  of  grief  can  ne'er  repay 
The  debt  of  love  I  owe  ; 
Here,  Lord,  I  give  myself  away, 
'Tis  all  that  I  can  do." 

0  Lord  Jesus,  we  accept  thee !  We  all  accept  thee  now. 
There  is  no  hand  in  all  this  audience  lifted  to  smite  thee 
on  the  check  now.  No  one  will  spear  thee  now.  No 
one  will  strike  thee  now.  Come  in,  Lord  Jesus!  Come 
nuickly  1 

12 


266  DROWNED  IN  THE  LAKE. 


DEOWNED  IN  THE  LAKE. 

"The  deep  that  coucheth  beneath." — Deuteronomy  xxxiii.,  13. 

SWITZERLAND  has  the  glaciers  of  Mont  Blanc  as  a 
crown  for  her  brow,  and  Lake  Geneva  for  an  emerald 
on  her  right  hand.  In  the  Swiss  railway  we  were  told 
that  we  must  look  out  for  the  bridge  where,  as  he  emerges, 
there  suddenly  dashes  upon  the  eye  of  the  traveler  one  of 
the  most  extraordinary  scenes  of  beauty  and  grandeur  in 
all  Europe.  In  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  appears  Lausanne, 
seated  on  her  throne  of  three  hills,  with  twenty-one  thou- 
sand population ;  her  cathedral,  nine  hundred  years  old, 
with  apsed  chapels  and  Byzantine  capitals;  her  museums, 
distinguished  the  world  over  for  the  finest  specimens  in 
minerals,  and  animals,  and  shell-fish  ;  her  terraces  and  gar- 
dens, bewitching  with  aroma  and  luxuriance;  her  schools, 
which,  by  the  rarest  opportunity  for  culture,  invite  the 
youth  of  America  and  of  all  the  world ;  Lake  Geneva, 
deep,  yet  the  clearest  of  waters,  traversed  by  steamers 
crowded  with  passengers  from  all  lands,  and  fishing-smacks 
here  and  there  hauling  out  trout,  and  pike,  and  perch,  and 
salmon;  and  sail -boats  going  out  from  the  castles  on  the 
beach  occupied  by  gentlemen  of  fortune.  This  sheet  of 
water,  skirted  by  mountains.  Jura  and  the  Alps,  some  green 
Vv'ith  verdure,  some  white  with  snow,  some  cleft  with 
streams,  crystalline  and  arrowy,  the  chalices  of  the  floods 
emptying  into  this  great  bowl  of  the  mountain.  On  the 
banks  of  this  lake  Gibbon,  Rousseau,  and  Voltaire  studied, 


DROWNED  AV  TUE  LAKE.  2G7 

and  Byroii  dramatized,  and  John  Kemble,  tlic  tragedian, 
li'.'P  buried,  and  Rothschild  built  his  mansion,  and  ten  thou- 
sand men  and  women,  far  better  than  any  I  have  men- 
tioned, have  gone  up  and  down,  adoring  the  God  who 
lifted  the  hills  and  sunk  this  great  inland  sea.  May  you 
all  live  to  behold  the  Alps,  cloud-turbaned,  looking  down 
into  the  mirror  of  beautiful  Geneva! 

A  few  days  ago,  two  lads  of  our  own  city,  and  much  of 
the  time  of  our  own  congregation,  pushed  out  from  Lau- 
sanne on  those  exquisite  waters,  on  a  pleasure  excursion. 
It  was  in  the  leisure  of  school -hours.  A  sudden  storm 
swept  over  the  lake,  capsizing  that  boat ;  or  there  was  a 
defect  in  the  vessel,  and  those  precious  lives  were  emptied 
into  a  watery  grave.  You  say  that  they  ought  not  to  have 
gone  where  there  was  danger.  I  reply,  where  will  you  go 
and  find  no  danger?  You  go  down  the  street,  a  scaffold 
may  fall  on  you.  You  go  to  the  park,  the  horses  may  be- 
come unmanageable.  You  take  the  rail  train,  a  switch- 
man may  turn  the  track  the  wrong  way.  You  stay  at 
home,  the  lightning  may  strike  through  the  roof,  or  miasma 
may  come  in  through  the  open  w-indow.  Dangers  stand 
round  us  everywhere  to  press  us  to  the  tomb. 

There  is  great  health  for  a  student  in  rowing  with  the 
oar,  and  great  exhilaration  in  the  spreading  of  the  sail; 
but  the  lake  that  you  stroke  and  fondle,  thinking  it  harm- 
less and  asleep,  sometimes  proves  treacherous  to  the  yacht, 
and  springs  upon  it  like  a  panther,  clutching  it  down  with 
•wrathful,  overmastering  strength.  So  that  Moses,  in  the 
text,  graphically  and  truthfully  describes  the  fatal  slyness 
of  river  and  lake  and  sea  when  he  says,  ^'The  deep  that 
coucheih  heneath.^^ 

The  particulars  of  that  sad  event  have  not  yet  come  to 


268  DROWNED  IN  THE  LAKE. 

us;  but  never,  through  the  coral  caves  of  the  Athanlic, 
and  amidst  the  gardens  of  sea-weed,  and  along  by  the  hulks 
of  the  wrecked  shipping,  could  a  more  fearful  message 
travel  the  submarine  cable  than  that  which  came  last  week 
announcing  that  John  and  James  Crane,  two  American 
students  at  Lausanne,  Switzerland,  had  ended  their  mortal 
life  in  Lake  Geneva.  Such  a  transition  is  the  easiest  and 
most  painless  of  all  modes  of  getting  out  of  this  life.  After 
one  minute  of  subraei'gence,  generally,  consciousness  is 
gone.  The  Navarino  sponge-divers  can  not  bear  to  stay 
under  the  water  more  than  two  minutes,  notwithstandinsf 
all  their  experience ;  and  yet  persons  who  have  been  re- 
suscitated tell  us  that  the  mind  at  such  a  time  acts  with 
wonderful  velocity.  And  so  I  suppose  these  dear  lads  had 
time  to  thiidi  of  home,  and  the  sadness  of  the  parental 
hearts  whom  they  expected  to  join  next  October.  God 
decreed  otherwise,  and  may  his  omnipotent  grace  soothe 
the  bereaved  and  the  desolate. 

There  is  in  this  event  that  I  am  called  to  speak  about 
to-night  a  new  illustration  of  a  very  old  lesson.  You  tell 
me  nothing  but  a  stereotyped  thing  when  you  tell  me  of 
life's  uncertainty.  I  have  heard  that  a  thousand  times 
from  ministers  and  prayer-meeting  talkers  and  Sabbath- 
school  teachers  ;  and  when  you  make  that  announcement,  I 
open  my  eye's  no  wider,  nor  does  my  heart  beat  quicker ; 
but  when  you  tell  me  that  a  boat  flung  two  beloved  lads 
into  a  watery  grave,  then  I  am  stunned  by  the  telegram, 
and  compelled  to  read  the  truth  written  by  pen  of  light- 
ning stretched  up  from  under  the  sea.  How  quickly  our 
life  comes,  and  how  soon  it  goes!  We  pass  along  a  peril- 
ous cliff,  and  we  almost  hold  our  breath,  and  balance  our- 
self  lest  we  fall  off,  and,  getting  beyond  the  pass,  we  thank 


DROWNED  IN  THE  LAKE.  269 

God  for  our  deliverance,  but  perhaps  lie  down  and  die  in 
the  smooth  plain  beneath.  Many  a  man  has  gone  through 
three  or  four  battles  undipped  of  bullet  or  sabre,  who  has 
had  his  life  at  last  dashed  out  on  the  icy  pavement  in  front 
of  his  door-step,  or  by  the  snapping  of  a  whiflQetree.  You 
go  two  thousand  miles  in  an  express  train  unharmed,  to 
lose  your  life  at  the  hands  of  a  reckless  hackman  in  your 
own  village.  These  two  lads  of  whom  I  am  speaking 
went  through  three  thousand  miles  of  stormy  Atlantic  un- 
harmed, to  find  their  death  on  a  lake  that  they  might  sail 
across  in  thirty  minutes.  When  we  picture  our  exit  from 
this  world,  we  are  very  apt  to  think  of  a  soft  couch  and  a 
shaded  room  and  careful  attendants  ;  but  many  of  us  who 
are  here  to-night  will  never  have  any  thing  like  that.  It 
will  be  a  rush,  and  a  plunge,  and  a  leap,  and  a  fall,  and  the 
world  flashes  out,  and  eternity  flashes  in. 

You  tell  me  that  this  lesson  of  life's  uncertainty  is  ap- 
propriate only  for  the  old,  for  the  emaciated,  for  the  sick. 
Ah  no!  these  lads  did  not  come  crawling  down  to  the 
boat,  they  did  not  come  on  crutches,  they  were  not  fagged 
out.  They  came  bounding  into  the  boat,  elastic,  ruddy,  ro- 
bust. They  expected  to  live  seventy  years.  Their  lungs 
sound,  their  hearts  beating  with  healthful  pulsation,  their 
limbs  lithe,  their  clear  eye  taking  in  the  sheen  of  wave  and 
the  frown  of  crag  and  the  azure  of  sky,  they  sprung  to 
their  places  in  the  prow  or  stern  with  shout  and  laughter. 
They  had  no  premonition  that  they  were  to  go.  So,  my 
friends,  it  will  be  with  many  of  us.  You  pay  a  certain, 
amount  of  money,  premium  for  life-insurance,  that,  when 
you  are  gone,  your  family  may  get  relief  from  it ;  but  what 
life-insurance  company  would  dare  to  say  to  a  man,  "You 
will  live  a  year,"  or  "  You  will  live  six  months,"  or  "  You 


270  DROWNED  IN  THE  LAKE. 

will  live  a  week,"  or  "You  will  live  a  da}^,"  or  "You 
will  live  an  hour,"  or  "  You  will  live  a  second" — and  war- 
rant it?  I  came  to  this  platform  to-nigbt  strong  and  well, 
but  that  is  no  assurance  that  I  shall  go  off  alive.  To-mor- 
row morning  you  cross  the  ferry  in  good  health;  that  is 
no  assurance  that  you  will  come  back  without  being  helped. 
Our  physical  organism  is  such  a  delicate,  intricate,  elaborate 
piece  of  Divine  mechanism,  that  if  but  the  little  finger  of 
disaster  touch  it  too  roughly  it  crushes  into  ruin.  God,  as 
if  to  show  that  you  can  not  depend  upon  physiological  ap- 
pearances, lets  some  invalid  crawl  on  to  eighty-five  years 
of  age,  kept  up  by  tonics  and  plasters,  and  helped  by  spec- 
tacles and  ear- trumpets  and  canes,  while  there  are  thou- 
sands, muscular,  roundly  developed,  and  athletic,  who  di'op 
dead  under  apoplectic  stroke.  Feel  in  your  pockets  and 
bring  me  out,  if  you  can,  a  document  rightly  signed  and  seal- 
ed warranting  you  to  get  through  this  night  alive.  I  saw 
plunging  into  Lake  Geneva  the  Eiver  Ehone.  It  came  on 
with  swift  uproar,  and  you  could  tell  some  distance  back 
that  it  was  coming  on  to  that  plunge.  But  who  can  tell  at 
what  moment,  at  what  day,  the  river  of  our  life  shall  empty 
into  the  deep,  wide,  infinite  future?  All  the  heavy  ship- 
ping that  goes  out  of  New  York  goes  through  the  "  Nar- 
rows ;"  but  by  what  different  tack !  to  what  different  har- 
bors ! 

One  of  the  most  fascinating  excursions  in  Switzerland  is 
to  the  Castle  of  Chalons,  in  the  midst  of  those  very  Gene- 
van waters.  History  and  poetrj^  tell  us  that  Bonivard,  the 
hero,  was  chained  in  that  castle  six  years ;  and  you  can  see 
the  bolt  and  ring  where  he  was  fastened,  and  the  circular 
depression  in  the  ground  where  he  tramped  about.  After 
a  while  a  flotilla  came  down,  and  he  was  freed ;   but  he 


DROWNED  IN  TUB  LAKE.  271 

heard  them  coming  before  his  shout  of  deliverance  min- 
gled with  their  shout  of  victory.  Yet  here,  my  friends, 
we  go  tramping  around  in  this  earthly  prison-house,  chain- 
ed to  a  body  from  which  we  can  not  get  free,  not  knowing 
at  what  moment  the  forces  of  the  great  future  may  break 
in  upon  us  to  shatter  these  manacles  of  flesh,  and  disen- 
dungeon  our  immortal  spirit,  until  the  prisoner  of  Chalons 
shall  become  the  victor  of  the  skies. 

Do  you  not  feel  that  we  walk  amidst  a  vast  uncertainty, 
not  knowing  what  peril  may  swoop  from  above  or  what 
deep  may  be  crouching  beneath?  Suppose  you  had  been 
with  those  boj's  in  that  boat,  would  you  have  been  ready? 
It  was  well  for  them  that  they  were  children  of  the  Cove- 
nant— "I  will  be  a  God  to  thee  and  to  thy  seed  after  thee." 
— and  that  they  were  praying  boys,  in  their  Brooklyn  home 
kneeling  down  with  their  mother  and  praying  aloud,  not 
ashamed  to  let  the  world  hear  any  more  than  to  let  God 
hear.  Oh,  when  the  boat  became  unmanageable,  and  they 
were  trying  to  haul  in  sail,  they  would  not  have  had  so 
good  an  opportunity  for  spiritual  preparation  as  they  had  in 
their  calm  Brooklyn  home,  where  they  were  not  ashamed 
to  acknowledge  Jesus!  Many  of  you  will  go  out  of  life 
just  as  suddenly.  Whether  b}'-  flood,  or  fire,  or  earth- 
quake, or  lightning-flash,  or  colliding  rail  trains,  or  a  fatal 
slip  on  an  orange-peeling  in  the  street,  I  know  not;  but 
you  will  have  then  no  time  to  repent,  and  you  will  have 
no  time  to  pray.  If  all  the  churches  and  cathedrals  of  the 
world  should  then  go  crying  unto  God  in  your  behalf,  it 
would  not  do  you  any  good.  All  the  preparation  a  man 
makes  for  the  great  future,  he  has  to  make  this  side  the 
sharp  line  that  divides  the  two  residences, 

I  sec  in  this  event  that  hilarity  and  gladness  can  not 


272  '  DROWNED  IN  THE  LAKE. 

keep  back  the  fatal  attack.  When  three  or  four  students 
are  together,  and  in  such  a  tonic  and  exhilarating  air  as 
that  of  Switzerland,  there  is  mirth  and  exuberance  un- 
bounded. They  did  not  see  the  soft  paws  of  the  wave 
reaching  up  around  the  gilded  boat,  nor  did  they  imagine 
that  the  deep  lay  couched  beneath,  ready  to  spring  upon 
them.  I  believe  in  mirth  and  in  boating  and  in  pleasure- 
excursions  ;  but  I  want  you  to  understand  that  gladness 
and  hilarity  of  surrounding  can  not  keep  back  our  last  mo- 
ment. It  may  come  treading  over  rose-leaves ;  it  may 
come  keeping  step  to  the  thrum  of  the  harp,  while  hands 
are  clapping,  while  feet  are  bounding,  while  all  sails  are 
set  over  a  glassy  sea.  So  it  came  when  the  Arctic  and  the 
Vesta^  mid- Atlantic,  struck.  So  it  came  when  the  Austria 
burned  on  the  high  seas.  So  it  came  when  Richmond 
Court-house  fell.  So  it  came  when  the  Ville  du  Havre 
sunk.  "  In  such  a  day,  and  in  such  an  hour  as  ye  think 
not,  the  Son  of  man  cometh,"  Oh,  this  bell  of  warning 
that  rings  to-night  has  not  attached  to  it  a  short  rope  that 
any  sexton  may  seize,  but  a  twisted  strand  of  wire  three 
thousand  miles  long,  and  the  red  fingers  of  the  lightnhig 
pull  it  until  it  rings  from  continent  to  continent,  "  Whatso- 
ever thy  hand  findeth  to  do,  do  it  with  thy  might,  for  there 
is  no  work,  nor  device,  nor  knowledge,  nor  wisdom,  in  the 
grave  whither  thou  goest."  What  a  voice  for  the  youth 
of  my  congregation — the  voice  that  comes  from  Lake  Ge- 
neva to-night !  Young  people  do  not  like  any  thing  dull 
or  stupid.  Neither  do  I,  and  I  do  not  blame  them  for 
that;  but  there  is  nothing  tame  in  this  event.  It  comes 
with  a  great  thrill,  and  it  seems  that  your  body  and  mind 
and  soul  must  feel  the  shock. 

They  had  every  prospect  of  living.     Just  look  at  their 


DROWNED  IN  THE  LAKE.  273 

pictures.  See  what  broad  shoulders  tbey  had,  what  stout 
chests,  what  ruddy  cheeks,  what  grand  foreheads.  "  Oli !" 
you  say,  "  if  they  had  only  known  how  to  swim,  it  would 
liave  been  all  right."  They  could  swim ;  they  could  out- 
swim  you.  They  were  as  familiar  with  the  water  as  many 
with  the  land.  They  were  splendid  swimmers.  Their  fa- 
ther had  taught  them  how  to  take  this  exercise.  But  they 
were  too  far  from  shore,  or  the  boom  struck  them,  and  they 
are  gone.  They  had  no  pluck  to  stand  up  against  a  lake 
one  thousand  feet  deep.  Their  father,  who  had  often  been 
with  them  on  the  water,  was  not  there.  He  could  give 
them  no  relief  But  I  think  that  He  who  walked  Lake 
Gennesaret  walked  Lake  Geneva,  and  that  they  are  safe. 
O  man !  O  woman !  when  your  last  moment  comes,  you 
want  something  more  than  a  human  arm  to  help  you.  No 
one  but  Jesus  then  ;  no  one  but  Jesus  now. 

They  had  brilliant  prospects.  In  Germany,  in  Paris, 
and  in  Switzerland  they  had  studied,  at  the  fountain-head, 
those  languages  through  which  comes  so  much  of  the  cul- 
ture and  refinement  of  the  world.  The  gates  of  knowledge 
and  of  success  were  open  before  them ;  but  they  died  at 
the  gates,  and  all  the  plans  for  earthly  welfare  ended  then 
and  there.  My  bearers,  do  not  build  too  much  upon  this 
world.  It  is  a  glassy  surface,  with  a  thousand  feet  of  graves 
beneath.  Do  you  think  you  can  sail  that  craft,  and  clew 
down  the  topsail-yards,  and  haul  out  the  reef  tackles?  A 
sudden  squall  may  come,  and  you  will  go  down,  unless 
there  be  a  Christ  sleeping  in  the  hinder  part  of  the  ship, 
ready  in  the  nick  of  time  to  rise  up  and  hush  the  wind 
and  silence  the  sea.  I  believe  the  Son  of  God  was  in 
that  tossing  boat,  and  that  when  these  lads  cried  out,  in 
their  extremity,  "  Master,  save  us,  we  perish !"'    I  think 

12" 


274  DROWNED  IN  TEE  LAKE. 

then  and  there  he  came  to  their  spiritual  and  immortal 
rescue. 

Let  us  pray  God  he  will  comfort  those  who  are  waiting 
for  more  minute  tidings  of  this  event.  The  tongue  of  the 
cable  seems  to  have  been  palsied  with  the  tidings,  and  it 
does  not  talk  plainly.  I  wish  their  bodies  might  be  found. 
It  would  be  a  satisfaction,  though  a  sad  satisfaction,  to 
have  them  here  in  one  of  our  own  cemeteries.  As  the 
mother  said  to  me  a  few  hours  ago,  it  would  seem  like 
tucking  them  away  in  bed  safely  for  the  night.  But  if 
God  shall  deny  these  parents  this,  it  will  make  no  differ- 
ence to  the  lads,  and  the  archangel's  trumpet  that  wakes 
up  the  sea  will  wake  up  also  the  lake.  And,  after  all, 
they  can  find  no  grander  place  to  sleep  than  where  they 
are  sleeping  now ;  the  shadows  of  Jura  and  the  Alps  blank- 
eting them  in  their  slumbers,  while  vast,  majestic  Mont 
Blanc  bends  over  them  snow-white,  the  only  fit  type  of  the 
great  white  throne  before  which  they  and  we  shall  be  as- 
sembled. 

But  I  am  to-night  oppressed  almost  to  suffocation  with 
the  idea  that  there  may  be  some  here  who  are  unprepared 
for  that  ordeal.  Certainly  some  of  you  are  not  ready  now, 
and  you  are  not  taking  any  steps  toward  preparation. 
What,  0  young  man!  O  man  in  mid-life!  O  aged  man!  if 
this  night  thy  soul  should  be  required  of  thee?  It  is  a  se- 
rious question  to  ask.  It  is  a  serious  question  to  answer. 
You  are  no  safer  on  the  land  than  you  are  on  the  wave. 
Oh,  make  one  mighty  struggle  for  heaven!  Put  out  for 
the  shore  of  eternal  safety  before  your  soul  sinks.  There 
comes  to  you  to-night,  not  so  much  my  voice  as  the  voices 
of  the  lads  John  and  James,  sounding  over  the  mountains, 
sounding  across  the  sea,  declaring  with  startling  emphasis, 


DROWNED  IN  THE  LAKE.  275 

"In  such  a  day  and  Lour  as  ye  tliink  not,  tlic  Son  of  man 
Cometh." 

Before  they  went  away,  two  years  ago,  on  the  finger  of 
one  of  the  lads  was  placed  a  gold  ring  with  the  inscription, 
"God  bless  you ;"  and  on  the  finger  of  the  other  lad  was 
placed  a  gold  ring  with  the  inscription,  "  Remember  father 
and  mother;"  but  God  your  Father  would  this  night  put 
upon  your  soul  immortal  the  signet-ring  of  his  everlasting 
affection.     Will  you  wear  it  ? 

"While  life  prolongs  its  precious  light, 
Mercy  is  found,  and  peace  is  given  ; 
But  soon,  ah  !  soon,  approaching  night 
Will  blot  out  every  hope  of  heaven." 


276  THE  MEL   COED  IN  THE  WINDOW. 


THE  RED  CORD  IN  THE  WINDOW. 

"And  she  bound  the  scarlet  hue  in  tlie  window." — Joshua  ii.,  21. 

F  you  have  any  idea  that  I  have  chosen  this  text  be- 
cause it  is  odd,  you  do  not  know  me  nor  the  errand 
on  which  I  come.  Eternity  is  too  near  and  life  too  short 
for  men  to  take  texts  merely  because  they  are  peculiar.  I 
take  this  because  it  is  full  of  the  old  Gospel. 

There  is  a  very  sick  and  sad  house  in  the  city  of  Jer- 
icho, What  is  the  matter?  Is  it  poverty?  No.  Worse 
than  that.  Is  it  leprosy?  No.  Worse  than  that.  Is  it 
death  ?  No.  Worse  than  that,  A  daughter  has  forsaken 
her  home.  By  what  infernal  plot  she  was  induced  to  leave, 
I  know  not ;  but  they  look  in  vain  for  her  return.  Some- 
times they  hear  a  footstep  very  much  like  hers,  and  they 
start  up  and  say,  "  She  comes !"  but  only  to  sink  back 
again  into  disappointment.  Alas!  alas!  The  father  sits 
by  the  hour,  with  his  face  in  his  hands,  saying  not  one 
word.  The  mother's  hair  is  becoming  gray  too  fast,  and 
she  begins  to  stoop,  so  that  those  who  saw  her  only  a  little 
while  ago  in  the  street  know  her  not  now  as  she  passes. 
The  brothers  clench  their  fists,  swearing  vengeance  against 
the  despoiler  of  their  home.  Alas!  will  the  poor  soul 
never  come  back?  There  is  a  long,  deep  shadow  over  all 
the  household.  Added  to  this,  there  is  an  invadin^aijxij 
six  miles  away,  just  over  the  river,~comihg  on  to  destroy 
the  city;  and  what  with  the  loss  of  their  child,  and  the 
coming-on  of  that  destructive  army,  I  think  the  old  people 


TUE  RFA)   CORD  IN  THE   WINDOW.  277 

wished  that  they  could  die.     Tliat  is  the  first  scene  in  this 
drama  of  the  Bible. 

In  a  house  on  the  wall  of  the  city  is  that  daughter. 
That  is  her  home  now.  Two  spiesHHive  come  from  the 
invading  aw»y  io  look  around  through  Jericho,  and  see 
how  best  it  may  be  taFcn.  Yonder  is  the  lost  child,  in 
that  dwelling  on  the  wall  of  the  city.  The  police  hear  of 
it,  and  soon  there  is  the  shufffihg^oTfeet  all  around  about 
the  door,  and  the  city  government  demands  the  surrender 
of  those  two  spies.  First,  Raliab — for  that  was  the  name 
of  the  lost  child — first,  Rahab  secretes  the  two  spies,  and 
gets  their  pursuers  off  the  track;  but  after  a  while  she 
says  to  them,  "  I  will  make  a  bargain  with  you.  I  will 
save  your  life  if  you  will  save  my  life,  and  the  life  of  my 
father,  and  my  mother,  and  my  brothers,  and  my  sisters, 
when  the  victorious  army  comes  upon  the  city."  Oh,  she 
had  not  forgotten  her  home  yet,  you  see !  The  wanderer 
never  forgets  home.  Her  heart  breaks  now  as  she  thinks 
of  how  she  has  maltreated  her  parents,  and  she  wishes  she 
were  back  with  them  again,  and  she  wishes  she  could  get 
away  from  her  sinful  inthrallment;  and  sometimes  she 
looks  up  in  the  face  of  the  midnight,  bursting  into  agoniz- 
ing tears.  No  sooner  have  these  two  spies  promised  to  save 
her  life,  and  the  life  of  her  father,  and  mother,  and  brothers, 
and  sisters,  than  Rahab  takes  a  scarlet  cord  and  tics  it 
around  the  body  ofone  of  the  spies,  bnngs  him  to  the  win- 
dowT^md,  as  he  clambers  out — nervous  lest  she  have  not 
strength  to~h(5WiiTin — Willi  Tnnscular  arms  such  as  woman 
seldom  has,  she  lets  him  down,  hand  over  hand,  in  safety 
to  the  ground.  Not  being  exhausted,  she  tics  the  cord 
around  the  other  spy,  brings  him  to  the  window,  and  just 
as  successfully  l^tS"tiTn  "do w'q' to  the  ground.     No  sooner 


278  THE  RED   COIiB  IN  THE  WINDOW. 

have  these  men  untied  the  scarlefc.xord  from  their  bodies 
than  they  look  up,  and  they  say,  "  You  had  better  get  all 
your  friends  in  this  houae — 3^00 r  father,  your  rnother,  your 
brothers,  and  your  sisters;  3'ou  had  better  geTThem  in  this 
chouse.  And  then,  after  you  have  them  here,  take  this  red 
cord  which  you  have  put  around  our  bodies,  and  tie  it 
across  the  window ;  and  when  our  victorious  army  comes 
up,  and  sees  that  scarlet  thread  in  the  window,  it  will 
spare  this  house  and  all  who  are  in  it.  Shall  it  be  so?" 
cried  the  spies.  "Ay,  ay,"  said  Eahab,  from  the  window, 
"it  shall  be  so!"  That  is  the  second  scene  in  this  Bible 
drama.  "  ""^ 

There  is  a  knock  at  the  door  of  the  old  man.  He  looks 
up,  and  says,  "  Come  in  ;"  and,  lo!  there  is  Eahab,  the  lost 
child ;  but  she  has  no  time  to  talk.  They  gather  in  ex- 
citement around  her,  and  she  says  to  them,  "Get  ready 
quickly,  and  go  with  me  to  my  house.  The  army  is  com- 
ing! The  trumpet!  Make  haste!  Fly!  T!Tie  enemy!" 
That  is  the  third  scene  in  this  Bible  drama. 

The  hosts  of  Israel  are  all  around  about  the  doomed 
city  of^ericho.  Crash !  goes  the  great  metropolis,  heaps 
on  heaps.  The  air  suffocating  with  the  dust,  and  horri- 
ble with  the  screams  of  a  dying  city.  All  the  houses  flat 
down.  All  the  people  dead.  Ah  no,  no.  On  a  crag  of 
the  wall — the  only  piece  of  the  wall  left  standing — there 
is  a  house  which  we  must  enter.  There  is  a  family  there 
that  has  been  spared.  Who  are  they  ?  Let  us  go  in  and 
see.  Eahab,  her  father,  her  mother,  her  brothers,  her  sis- 
ters, alj^afe,  and  the  only  house  left  standing  in  all  the 
city.  What  saved  them?  AYas  the  house  more  firmly 
built?  Oh  no;  it  was  built  in  the  most  perilous  place,  on 
the  wall,  and  the  wall  was  the  first  thing^that  fell.     Wag 


THE  RED   CORD  IN  THE   WINDOW.  279 

it  because  her  character  was  any  better  than  any  of  the 
other  population  of  the  city?  Oh  no.  Why,  then,  was 
she"«parecl,  and  all  her  household  ?  Can  you  tell  me  why  ? 
Oh,  it  was  the  scarlet  line  in  the  window.  That  is  the 
fo u rth'scene  in  thisT5ibl6  drama. 

When  the  destroying  angel  went  through  Egypt  it  was 
the  blood  of  the  lamb  on  the  door-posts  that  saved  the  Is- 
raelites; and  now  that  vengeance  has  come  upon  Jericho, 
it  is  the  same  color  that  assures  the  safety  of  Rahab  and 
all  her  household.  My  friends,  there  are  foes  coming 
upon  us,  more  deadly  and  more  tremendous,  to  overthrow 
our  immortal  interests.  They  will  trample  us  down,  and 
crush  us  out  forever,  unless  there  be  some  skillful  mode  of 
rescue  open.  The  police  of  death  already  begin  to  clamor 
for  our  surrender;  but,  blessed  be  God,  there  is  a  way  out. 
It  is  through  the  window,  and  by  a  rope  so  saturated  with 
the  blood  of  the  cross  that  it  is  as  red  as  that  with  which 
the  spies  were  lowered ;  and  if  once  our  souls  shall  be  de- 
livered, then,  the  scarlet  cord  stretched  across  the  window 
of  our  escape,  we  may  defy  all  bombardment,  earthly  and 
Satanic. 

In  the  first  place,  carrying  out  the  idea  of  my  text,  we 
must  stretch  this  scarlet  cord  across  lite  irindvi'  of  our  rescue. 
There  comes  a  tInTe*wh'cii~a"man  is  surrounded.  What  is 
that  in  the  front  door  of  his  soul?  It  is  the  threateninafs 
of  the  future.  What  is  that  in  the  back  door  of  the  soul  ? 
It  is  the  sins  of  the  past.  lie  can  not  get  out  of  either  of 
those  door-ways.  If  he  attempts  it  he  will  be  cut  to  pieces. 
AVliat  shall  he  do?  Escape  through  the  window  of  God's 
mercy.  That  sunshine  has  bSfih  pouring  irTTor  rnany^  a 
day:  God's  inviting  mercy.  God's  pardoning  mercy. 
God's   all -conquering  mercy.      God's  everlasting  mercy. 


280  THE  RED   UOIW  IN  THE  WINDOW. 

But,  you  say,  the  window  is  so  high.  Ah,  there  is  a  rope, 
the  very  one  with  which  the  cross  and  its  Victim  were 
lifted.  That  w\as  strong  enough  to  hold  Christ,  and  it  is 
strong  enough  to  hold  you.  Bear  all  your  weight  upon  it, 
all  your  hopes  for  this  life,  all  your  hopes  for  the  life  that 
is  to  come.  Escape  now  through  the  window.  "But," 
you  say,  "  that  cord  is  too  small  to  save  me ;  that  salvation 
will  never  do  at  all  for  such  a  sinner  as  I  have  been."  I 
suppose  that  the  rope  with  which  Eahab  let  the  two  spies 
to  the  ground  was  not  thick  enough;  but  they  took  that 
or  nothing.  And.  my  dear  brother,  that  is  your  alterna- 
tive. There  is  only  one  scarlet  line  that  can  save  you. 
There  have  been  hundreds  and  thousands  who  have  been 
borne  away  in  safety  by  that  scarlet  line,  and  it  will  bear 
you  away  in  safety.  Do  you  notice  what  a  very  narrow 
escape  those  spies  had?  I  suppose  they  came  with  flus- 
tered cheek  and  with  excited  heart.  They  had  a  very  nar- 
row escape.  They  went  in  the  broad  door  of  sin ;  but 
how  did  they  come  out?  They  came  out  of  the  window. 
They  went  up  by  the  stairs  of  stone ;  they  came  down  on 
a  slender  thread.  And  so,  my  friends,  we  go  easily  and 
unabashedly  into  sin,  and  all  the  doors  are  open ;  but  if 
we  get  out  at  all  it  will  be  by  being  let  down  over  preci- 
pices, wriggling  and  helpless,  the  strong  grip  above  keep- 
ing us  from  being  dashed  on  the  rocks  beneath.  It  is 
eas}'-  to  get  into  sin,  young  man.  It  is  not  so  easy  to  get 
out  of  it, 

A  young  man,  to-niglit,  goes  to  the  marble  coniUer  of 
the  bar-room  of  the  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel.  He  asks  for  a 
brandj^-smash — called  so,  I  suppose,  because  it  smashes  the 
man  that  takes  it.  There  is  no  intoxication  in  it.  As  the' 
young  man  receives  it,  he  does  not  seem  to  be  at  all  ex- 


THE  BED  roi:i)  IX  riiK  wixnow.  281 

cited.  Tt  does  not  give  any  glassincss  to  the  eye.  He 
walks  liornc  in  beautiful  apparel,  and  all  liis  prospects  are 
brilliant.  That  drink  is  not  going  to  destroy  him,  but  it 
is  the  iirst  step  on  a  bad  road.  Years  have  passed  on,  and 
I  see  that  young  man  after  he  has  gone  the  whole  leno-th 
of  dissipation.  It  is  midnight,  and  he  is  in  a  hotel — per- 
haps the  very  one  where  he  took  the  first  drink.  He  is 
in  the  fourth  story,  and  the  delirium  is  on  him.  He  rises 
from  the  bed  and  comes  to  the  window,  and  it  is  easily 
lifted;  so  he  lifts  it.  Then  he  pushes  back  the  blinds, 
and  puts  his  foot  on  the  window-sill.  Then  he  gives  one 
spring,  and  the  watchman  finds  his  disfigured  bodv,  un- 
recognizable, on  the  pavement.  Oh,  if  he  had  only  waited 
a  little— if  he  had  come  down  on  the  scarlet  ladder  that 
Jesus  holds  from  the  wall  for  him  and  for  you  and  for  me ! 
But  no,  he  made  one  jump  of  it,  and  was  gone. 

A  minister  of  Christ  was  not  long  ago  dismissed  from  his 
diocese  for  intoxication,  and  in  a  public  meeting  at  the 
West  he  gave  this  account  of  his  sorrow.  He  said,  "  I  had 
a  beautiful  home  once;  but  strong  drink  shattered  it.  I 
had  beautiful  children  ;  but  this  fiend  of  rum  took  their 
dimpled  hands  in  his  and  led  them  to  the  grave.  I  had 
a  wife  —  to  know  her  was  to  love  her;  but  she  sits  in 
wretchedness  to-night  while  I  wander  over  the  earth.  I 
had  a  mother,  and  the  pride  of  her  life  was  I;  but  the 
thunder-bolt  struck  her.  I  now  have  scared}^  a  friend  in  all 
the  world.  Taste  of  the  bitter  cup  I  have  tasted,  and  then 
answer  mc  as  to  whether  I  have  any  hatred  for  the  agency 
of  my  ruin.  Hate  it!  I  hate  the  whole  damning  traffic. 
I  would  to  God  to-night  that  every  distillery  were  in  flames, 
for  then  in  the  glowing  sky  I  would  write  in  the  smoke  of 
the  ruin, '  Woe  to  him  that  putteth  the  bottle  to  his  neigh- 


282  THE  RED   COIiD  IN  THE  WINDOW. 

bor's  lips !'  "  That  minister  of  the  Gospel  went  in  througli 
the  broad  door  of  temptation  ;  he  came  out  of  the  window. 
And  when  I  see  the  temptations  that  are  all  about  us,  and 
when  I  know  the  proclivity  to  sin  in  every  man's  heart,  I 
see  that,  if  any  of  us  escape,  it  will  be  a  very  narrow  escape. 
Oh,  if  we  have,  my  friends,  got  off  from  our  sin,  let  us  tie 
the  scarlet  thread  by  which  we  have  been  saved  across  the 
window.  Let  us  do  it  in  praise  of  Him  whose  blood  dyed 
it  that  color.  Let  it  be  in  announcement  of  the  fact  that 
we  shall  no  more  be  fatally  assaulted.  "  There  is  now  no 
condemnation  to  them  that  are  in  Christ  Jesus."  Then 
let  all  the  forces  of  this  world  come  up  in  cavalry  charge, 
and  let  spirits  of  darkness  come  on,  an  infernal  storming 
party  attempting  to  take  our  soul ;  this  rope  twisted  from 
these  words,  "  The  blood  of  Jesus  Christ  cleanseth  from  all 
sin,"  will  hurl  them  back  defeated  forever. 

Still  further,  we  must  take  this  red  cord  of  the  text  and 
stretch  it  (icrossjh£-mmdow-€frmf'1rortse]iolds.  When  the  Is- 
raelitish  army  came  up  against  Jericho,  they  said,  "What 
is  that  in  the  window  ?"  Some  one  said,  "  That  is  a  scarlet 
line."  "Oh,"  said  some  one  else,  "that  must  be  the  house 
that  was  to  be  spared.  Don't  touch  it."  That  line  was 
thick  enough  and  long  enough  and  conspicuous  enough 
to  save  Kahab,  her  father,  her  mother,  her  brothers,  and 
her  sisters  —  the  entire  family.  Have  our  households  as 
good  protection  ?  You  have  bolts  on  the  front  door  and 
on  the  back,  and  fastenings  to  the  window,  and  perhaps 
burglar  alarms,  and  perhaps  an  especial  watchman  blow- 
ing his  whistle  at  midnight  before  your  dwelling;  but 
all  that  can  not  protect  your  household.  Is  there  on  our 
houses  the  sign  of  a  Saviour's  sacrifice  and  mercy?  Is 
there  a  scarlet  line  in  the  window?     Have  your  children 


THE  RED  CORD  IN  THE  ^\■I^■DOW.  283 

been  consecrated  to  Christ?  Ilave  you  been  wnslicd  in 
the  blood  of  the  atonement?  In  what  room  do  you  have 
family  prayers  ?  Show  me  where  it  is  you  are  accustomed 
to  kneel.  The  sky  is  black  with  the  coming  deluge.  Is 
your  family  inside  or  outside  the  ark?  It  is  a  sad  thing 
for  a  man  to  reject  Christ;  but  to  lie  down  in  the  night  of 
sin,  across  the  path  to  heaven,  so  that  his  family  come  up 
and  trip  over  him  into  an  infinity  of  horrors — that  is  the 
longest,  the  deepest,  the  mightiest!  It  is  a  sad  thing  for  a 
mother  to  reject  Christ;  but  to  gather  her  family  around 
her,  and  then  take  them  by  the  hand  and  lead  them  out 
into  paths  of  worldliness,  away  from  God  and  heaven — 
oh,  it  will  take  all  the  dirges  of  earth  and  hell  to  weep  out 
that  agony. 

I  suppose  there  are  in  this  church  to-night  families 
represented  where  there  has  not  been  an  audible  prayer 
offered  for  ten  years.  There  may  be  geranium  and  cac- 
tus in  the  window,  and  upholstery  hovering  over  it,  and 
childish  faces  looking  out  of  it ;  but  there  is  no  scarlet 
thread  stretched  across  it.  Although  that  house  may  seem 
to  be  on  the  finest  street  in  all  the  cit}^,  it  is  really  on  the 
edge  of  a  marsh  across  wdiich  sweep  most  poisonous  mala- 
rias, and  it  has  a  sandy  foundation,  and  its  splendor  will 
come  down,  and  great  will  be  the  foil  of  it.  A  home  with- 
out God!  A  prayerless  father!  An  undevout  mother! 
Awful !  awful !  Is  that  you  ?  Will  you  keep  on,  my 
brother,  on  the  wrong  road,  and  take  your  loved  ones  with 
you?  May  God  arrest  you  before  you  complete  the  ruin 
of  those  whom  you  ought  to  save.  You  see  I  talk  plain- 
ly to  you,  just  as  I  would  have  you  talk  plainly  to  me. 
Time  is  so  short,  that  we  can  not  waste  any  of' it  on  apol- 
ogies or  indirections  or  circumlocutions.    You  owe  to  your 


284  THE  RED   CORD  IN  THE  WINDOW. 

children,  0  father!  0  mother!  more  than  food,  more  than 
clothing,  more  than  shelter — jou  owe  them  the  example 
of  a  prayerful,  consecrated,  pronounced,  out-and-out  Chris- 
tian life.     You  can  not  afford  to  keep  it  away  from  them. 

Kow,  as  I  stand  here,  you  do  not  see  any  hands  out- 
stretched toward  me,  and  yet  there  are  hands  on  my  brow 
and  hands  on  both  my  shoulders.  They  are  hands  of  pa- 
rental benediction.  It  is  quite  a  good  many  j^ears  ago  now 
since  we  folded  those  hands  as  they  began  the  last  sleep 
on  the  banks  of  the  Raritan,  in  the  village  cemetery  ;  but 
those  hands  are  stretched  out  toward  me  to-night,  and  they 
are  just  as  warm  and  they  are  just  as  gentle  as  when  I 
sat  at  their  knee  at  five  years  of  age.  And  I  shall  never 
shake  off  those  hands.  I  do  not  want  to.  They  have 
helped  me  so  much  a  thousand  times  alread}^,  and  I  do  not 
expect  to  have  a  trouble  or  a  trial  between  this  and  ray 
grave  where  those  hands  will  not  help  me.  Theirs  was 
not  a  very  splendid  home,  as  the  world  calls  it;  but  we 
had  a  family  Bible  there,  well  worn  by  tender  perusal; 
and  there  was  a  family  altar  there,  where  we  knelt  morn- 
ing and  night;  and  there  was  a  holy  Sabbath  there;  and 
stretched  in  a  straight  line,  or  hung  in  loops  or  festoons, 
there  was  a  scarlet  line  in  the  window.  Oh,  the  tender, 
precious,  blessed  memory  of  a  Christian  home!  Is  that 
the  impression  you  are  making  upon  your  children? 
When  you  are  dead — and  it  will  not  be  long  before  you 
are — when  you  are  dead,  will  your  child  say,  "If  there 
ever  was  a  good  Christian  father,  mine  was  one.  If  there 
ever  was  a  good  Christian  mother,  mine  was  one?"  Will 
they  say  that  after  you  are  dead  ?  Standing  some  Sabbath 
night  in  church  preaching  the  glorious  Gospel,  as  I  am 
trying  to  do,  will  they  tell  the  people  in  that  day  how 


THE  RED   CORD  IX  THE  WINDOW.  285 

there  are  liaiuls  of  benediction  on  their  brow  and  hands  of 
parental  benediction  on  both  their  shoulders? 

Still  further,  we  want  this  scarlet  line  of  the  text 
drawn  across  Hie  luindowo^^ix^prespeds.  I  see  Rahab,  and 
her  fatlier,  and  her  rnoiher,  and  her  brothers,  and  sisters 
looking  out  over  Jericho,  the  city  of  palm-trees,  and  across 
the  river,  and  over  at  the  army  invading,  and  then  up  to 
the  mountains  and  the  sky.  Mind  you,  thiaJiouse-was  on 
the  wall,  andTsiTppose  the  prospect  from  the  window  must 
have  been  very  wide.  Besides  that,  I  dtJ^nofr-tbtt^  that 
the  scarlet  line  at  all  interfered  with  the  view  of  the  land- 
scape. The  assurance  it  gave  of  safety  must  have  added 
to  the  beauty  of  the  country.  To-night,  my  friends,  we 
stand  or  sit  in  the  window  of  earthly  prospect,  and  we 
look  off  toward  the  hills  of  heaven  and  the  landscape  of 
eternal  beauty.  God  has  opened  the  window  for  lis,  and 
we  look  out;  but  how  if  we  do  not  get  there?  If  we 
never  get  there,  better  never  to  have  had  even  this  faint 
glimpse  of  it.  We  now  only  get  a  dim  outline  of  the  in- 
habitants. We  now  only  here  and  there  catch  a  note  of 
the  exquisite  harmony. 

But  blessed  be  God  for  this  scarlet  line  in  the  window! 
That  tells  me  that  the  blood  of  Christ  bought  that  home 
for  my  soul,  and  I  shall  go  there  when  my  work  is  done 
here.  And  as  I  put  my  hand"'6lT"tbafc-scarlet  line  every 
thing  in  the  future  brightens.  My  eye-sight  gets  better, 
and  the  robes  of  the  victors  are  more  lustrous,  and  our 
loved  ones  who  went  away  some  time  ago — they  do  not 
stand  any  more  with  their  backs  to  us,  but  their  faces  are 
this  way,  and  their  voice  drops  through  this  Sabbath  air, 
saying,  with  all  tenderness  and  sweetness,  "  Come !  Come ! 
Come !"'    And  the  child  that  you  think  of  only  as  buried — 


286  THE  RED   CORD  IN  THE  WINDOW. 

why,  there  slie  is,  and  it  is  Maj-daj  in  heaven  ;  and  they 
gather  the  amaranth,  and  they  pluck  the  lilies,  and  they 
twist  them  into  a  garland  for  her  brow,  and  she  is  one  of 
the  May-queens  of  heaven.  Oh,  do  you  think  they  could 
see  our  waving  to-night?  It  is  quite  a  pleasant  night  out- 
doors, pretty  clear,  not  many  clouds  in  the  sky,  quite  star- 
light. I  wonder  if  they  can  see  us  from  that  good  land? 
I  think  they  can.  If  from  this  window  of  earthly  pros- 
pect we  can  almost  see  them,  then  from  their  towers  of 
light  I  think  they  can  fully  see  us.  And  so  I  wave  them 
the  glory,  and  I  wave  them  the  joy,  and  I  say,  "  Have  you 
got  through  with  all  your  troubles?"  and  their  voices  an- 
swer, "God  hath  wiped  away  all  tears  from  our  eyes."  I 
say,  "Is  it  as  grand  up  there  as  you  thought  it  would  be?" 
and  the  voices  answer,  "  Eye  hath  not  seen  nor  ear  heard, 
neither  have  entered  into  the  heart  of  man  the  things 
which  God  hath  prepared  for  them  that  love  him."  I  say, 
"Do  you  have  any  more  struggle  for  bread?"  and  they  an- 
swer, "  We  hunger  no  more,  we  thirst  no  more."  And  I 
say,  "  Have  you  been  out  to  the  cemetery  of  the  golden 
city  ?"  and  they  answer,  "  There  is  no  death  here."  And 
I  look  out  through  the  night  heavens,  and  I  say,  "  Where 
do  you  get  your  light  from,  and  what  do  you  burn  in  the 
temple  ?"  and  they  answer,  "  There  is  no  night  here,  and 
we  have  no  need  of  candle  or  of  star."  And  I  say,  "What 
book  do  you  sing  out  of?"  and  they  answer,  "  The  Halle- 
lujah Chorus."  And  I  say,  "  In  the  splendor  and  magnif- 
icence of  the  city,  don't  you  ever  get  lost  ?"  and  they 
answer,  "The  Lamb  which  is  in  the  midst  of  the  throne 
leadeth  us  to  living  fountains  of  water."  Oh,  how  near  it 
seems  to-night!  Their  wings  —  do  3^ou  not  feel  them? 
Their  harps — do  you  not  hear  them  ?     And  all  that  through 


THE  RED   CORD  IX  THE   ]yi\DO\y.  287 

tbc  wiiulow  of  our  cartlily  prospect,  across  which  slrclch- 
cth  the  S'^'U'let  hue. 

Be  that  my  choice  color  forever.  Is  it  too  glaring  for 
3'ou  ?  Do  you  lilie  the  blue  because  it  reminds  you  of  the 
sky,  or  the  green  because  it  makes  you  think  of  the  foli- 
age, or  the  black  because  it  has  in  it  the  shadows  of  the 
night?  I  take  the  scarlet  because  it  shall  make  me  think 
of  the  price  that  was  paid  for  my  soul.  Oh,  the  blood  ! 
the  blood !  the  blood  of  the  Lamb  of  God  that  takcth 
away  the  sin  of  the  world  !  Through  it  we  escape  sin. 
Through  it  we  reach  heaven.  "Will  3'ou  let  it  atone  for 
you  ?  Believe  in  it,  and  you  live.  Refuse  it,  and  you  die. 
Will  you  accept  it,  or  will  you  pull  over  on  you  the  eter- 
nal calamity  of  rejecting  it? 

I  sec  where  you  are.  You  are  at  the  cro.ss- roads  to- 
night. Tlic  next  step  decides  every  thing.  Pause  before 
you  take  it;  but  do  not  pause  too  long,  lest  the  wind  of 
God's  justice  slam  to  the  door  that  has  been  standing  open 
so  long.  I  hear  the  thunder  of  God's  artillery-.  I  hear 
the  blast  of  the  trumpet  that  wakes  the  dead.  Look  out! 
look  out!  For  in  that  day,  and  in  our  closing  moment 
on  earth,  better  than  any  other  defense  or  barricade,  how- 
ever high  or  broad  or  stupendous,  will  be  one  little,  thin, 
scarlet  thread  in  the  window. 


288  THE  LAMP. 


THE  LxiMP. 

"Thy  word  is  a  lamp." — Psalm  cxix.,  105. 

FROM  six  o'clock  last  evening  until  six  o'clock  this 
morning  darkness  rested  on  our  part  of  the  earth, 
and  every  few  hours  there  rolls  a  wave  of  natural  night 
all  over  the  nations.  With  lamps,  and  chandeliers,  and 
torches,  and  lanterns,  we  try  to  drive  out  the  night  from 
Louses,  and  churches,  and  stores,  and  shops.  He  who  in- 
vents a  new  kind  of  a  light  invents  his  own  fortune  and 
the  fortune  of  his  children.  Bat  there  is  a  night  of  sin 
and  suffering  and  shame  which  needs  another  kind  of 
illumination.  Ancient  philosophy  made  a  lamp,  but  it 
was  a  dead  failure,  and  the  people  kept  crying  out,  "Give 
us  a  liglit!  give  us  a  light!"  After  a  while  prophet  and 
evangelist  and  apostle  made  a  lamp.  A  coal  from  heaven 
struck  it  into  a  blaze,  and  uncounted  multitudes  of  people, 
with  an  open  Bible  before  them,  cry  out  in  rapture  and  in 
love,  "  Thy  word  is  a  lamp." 

When,  a  few  years  ago,  there  was  a  great  accident  in 
Hartley  Colliery,  in  England,  and  two  hundred  persons 
lost  their  lives,  the  Queen  telegraphed  down  to  the  scene 
of  disaster,  "Can  we  give  3-ou  any  help?  Will  you  be 
able  to  get  the  men  out  ?  How  many  are  lost?  Give  my 
sympathy  to  all  the  bereft."  What  consolation  it  was  to 
the  families  who  stood  amidst  the  consternation  and  the 
terror  that  the  throne  of  England  throbbed  in  sympathy 
with  their  disaster  !     But  I  have  to  tell  you  to-day  a  more 


THE  LAMP.  289 

glorious  truth,  and  that  is,  from  the  throne  of  God  the 
King  of  heaven  and  earth  telegraphs  down  through  this 
Bible  into  the  dungeons  of  our  sin  and  suffering  a  message 
of  pardon,  of  love,  of  sympathy,  of  comfort,  of  eternal  life. 
Like  some  light -house  on  high  promontory,  blessed  by 
ships  passing  through  darkness  and  storm,  so  on  the 
heights  of  God's  love  and  grace  there  flames  forth  a  light 
upon  the  great  sea  of  man's  wretchedness  and  of  God's 
providence,  so  that  angels  on  their  way  earthward,  and 
j'ansomed  spirits  on  their  way  heavenward,  and  devils  on 
their  way  hellward,  pass  through  its  flash,  crying,  "Thy 
woi'd  is  a  lamp." 

You  have  four  or  five  Bibles  in  your  house — perhaps 
ten,  perhaps  twenty.  They  are  such  common  property 
you  do  not  appreciate  them.  If  you  had  only  one  Bible, 
and  for  that  you  had  paid  five  hundred  dollars  (the  price 
that  was  paid  in  olden  time  for  a  copy  of  the  Scriptures), 
then  you  would  more  thoroughly  appreciate  it.  I  was 
once  a  colporteur  for  a  few  months  in  a  vacation,  and  I 
came  into  a  home  of  destitution.  I  saw  a  woman  there 
eighty-five  years  of  age,  and  I  said  to  her,  "  May  I  give 
you  a  Bible?"  "  Oh,"  she  replied,  "a  Bible  would  be  of 
no  use  to  me.  I  can't  see  to  read.  I  used  to  read,  but 
for  twenty  years  I  haven't  been  able  to  read  a  word."  I 
]>ulled  out  of  my  sachel  one  of  the  copies  of  the  Psalms  of 
David  and  the  New  Testament  in  great,  large,  round  type, 
and  I  said,  "Now,  put  on  your  spectacles  and  see  if  you 
can't  read  this."  She  wiped  her  spectacles  and  put  thorn 
on.  "  Oh  yes,"  she  said ;  "  wh}',  I  can  sec,  after  all !  I 
am  very  thankful  to  you.  Why,  yes,  I  see  it :  'I  love  the 
Lord  because  he  hath  heard  my  voice  and  my — '  Oh  yes, 
I  can  read  it,  I  can  read  it!"     I  wish  that  God  to-day 

13 


290  THE  LAMP. 

would  make  the  Bible  as  new  and  fresh  to  us  as  it  was 
to  her. 

I  want  to  show  you  that  the  Bible  is  a  lamp — a  parlor- 
lamp,  a  street-lamp,  a  store-lamp,  a  church-lamp,  a  sepul- 
chral lamp. 

Ill  parlors  all  aflash  with  gas-light  and  gleaming  mir- 
ror, and  blazing  chandelier  and  candelabra,  there  may  be 
Egyptian  darkness ;  while  in  some  plain  room  which  a 
frugal  band  has  spread  with  hospitality  and  refinement, 
this  one  lamp  may  cast  a  glow  that  makes  it  a  fit  place  for 
heavenly  coronations.  We  invoke  no  shadov/  to  fall  upon 
the  hilarities  of  life.  We  would  not  have  every  song  a 
dirge,  and  every  picture  a  martyrdom,  and  every  step  a 
funeral  pace.  God's  lamp,  hung  in  the  parlor,  would  chill 
no  joy,  would  rend  no  harmony,  would  check  no  innocent 
laughter.  On  the  contrary,  it  would  bring  out  brighter 
colors  in  the  picture;  it  would  expose  new  gracefulness  in 
the  curtain ;  it  would  unroll  new  wreaths  from  the  carpet; 
it  would  strike  new  music  from  the  harp ;  it  would  throw 
new  polish  into  the  manners;  it  would  kindle  M'ith  light, 
borrowed  from  the  very  throne  of  God,  all  the  refinements 
of  society.  Oh  that  the  Christ  who  was  born  in  a  barn 
would  come  to  our  parlor!  We  need  his  hand  to  sift  the 
parlor  music.  We  need  his  taste  to  assort  the  parlor  liter- 
ature. We  need  his  voice  to  conduct  the  parlor  conversa- 
tion. We  are  apt  to  think  of  religion  as  being  a  rude, 
blundering  thing,  not  fit  to  put  its  foot  upon  Axminster, 
or  its  clownish  hands  on  beautiful  adornments,  or  lift  its 
voice  amidst  the  artistic  and  refined ;  so,  while  we  have 
Jesus  in  the  nursery  when  we  teach  our  children  to  pray, 
and  Jesus  in  the  dining-hall  when  we  ask  his  blessing  upon 
our  food,  and  Jesus  in  the  sitting-room  M'hen  we  have 


THE  LA. UP.  291 

family  prayers,  it  is  a  simple  fiict  that  from  tea  tbousand 
Christian  homes  in  this  country  Christ  is  from  one  end 
of  the  year  to  the  other  shut  out  of  the  parlor.  Oh  that 
housekeepers  understood  that  the  grace  of  God  is  the 
greatest  accomplishment,  and  that  no  seat  is  too  luxuriant 
for  religion  to  sit  in,  and  no  arch  too  grand  for  religion  to 
•walk  under,  and  no  circle  too  brilliant  for  religion  to  move 
in !  If  Christianity  at  last  is  to  walk  up  the  streets  of 
heaven  with  seraphim  and  archangel,  it  is  good  enough  to 
go  anywhere  where  you  go  or  where  I  shall  go.  To  purify 
the  heart,  to  cleanse  the  life,  to  culture  the  taste,  to  expur- 
gate all  hypocrisy  and  falsehood  and  sham,  we  must  have 
the  Bible  in  the  parlor.  When  Christian  people  come  to 
spend  an  evening,  they  talk  about  the  weather,  and  they 
talk  about  the  scandal,  and  they  talk  about  the  crops,  and 
they  talk  about  the  markets;  but  they  do  not  talk  about 
God  and  Christ  and  heaven.  The  thing  we  most  want  to- 
day in  all  our  parlors  is  the  lamp  of  the  Bible. 

Still  further,  the  Bible  is  the  sireei-lamix  When  night 
comes  down  on  the  city,  crime  goes  forth  to  its  worst 
achievements.  Not  only  to  show  honest  citizens  where  to 
walk,  but  to  hinder  the  burglar,  and  assassin,  and  highway- 
man, and  pickpocket,  we  must  have  artificial  lights  all 
over  the  city.  I  remember  what  consternation  there  was 
in  Philadelphia  when  one  night  the  gas-works  were  out 
of  order,  and  the  whole  city  sat  in  darkness.  Between 
eleven  o'clock  at  night  and  three  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
in  the  dark  and  unlighted  places  of  the  town,  crime  has 
its  holiday.  If  the  lamp-lighter  ceased  his  work  for  one 
week,  the  town  would  rot.  But  there  is  a  darkness  be- 
yond all  power  of  gas-light.  What  is  the  use  of  police- 
station  and  almshouse  and  watchman's  club,  if  there  be  no 


292  THE  LAMP. 

moral  and  religious  influence  to  sanction  the  law  and  to 
purify  the  executive,  and  to  bang  over  legal  enactment  the 
fear  of  God  and  an  enlightened  public  opinion.  When 
in  a  city  crime  runs  rampant,  and  virtue  is  at  a  discount, 
and  jails  are  full,  and  churches  are  empty,  and  the  nights 
are  hideous  with  the  howl  and  the  whoop  of  drunkards, 
and  the  saloons  boil  over  with  scum,  and  public  officials 
think  more  of  a  bribe  than  they  do  of  their  own  conscience, 
and  when  great  tides  of  wickedness  set  down  the  streets 
— the  first  want  of  such  a  city  as  that  is  the  street-lamp 
of  the  Bible.  Did  you  ever  stand  in  a  church-tower  and 
look  down  upon  a  city  at  night?  It  is  overwhelming. 
But  you  feel  that  beneath  all  that  brilliancy  of  gas-light 
there  is  a  surging  sea  of  want  and  suftering  and  woe.  His- 
tory saj's  that  Dionysius  had  a  great  cave  built  for  his  pris- 
oners. He  was  a  cruel  man,  and  he  used  to  go  to  the  top 
of  the  cave,  put  his  ear  to  the  opening  and  listen,  and  the 
groans  and  the  sighings  of  the  pi'isoners  came  up  into  his 
ear  and  made  music  for  him.  God  stands  at  the  head  of 
our  world,  but  for  a  different  purpose  and  with  a  different 
heart.  He  puts  his  ear  to  tlie  dungeon,  and  every  sigh 
comes  up  stirring  his  sympathies,  and  every  groan  wound- 
inoj  his  heart;  and  he  listens  and  listens  all  night  lonsj. 
There  is  but  one  lamp  that  can  throw  light  into  the  dun- 
geon where  the  prisoner  groans,  into  the  hovel  where  the 
beggar  pines,  into  the  cellar  where  the  drunkard  wallows, 
into  the  alley  where  the  libertine  putrefies,  into  the  mad- 
house where  the  maniac  raves.  Travelers  in  Africa  tell 
us  that  they  have  seen  serpents — a  vast  number  of  them — 
coiled  together,  and  piled  up  in  horrid  fold  above  horrid 
fold;  and  then  they  would  hear  hundreds  of  them  hissing 
at  once,  and  the  sight  and  the  sound  were  appalling  and 


THE  LAMP.  293 

unbearable.  But  if  you  should  take  the  wickedness  of  our 
best  of  cities,  and  bring  it  all  together  in  one  place,  and 
pile  it  up  fold  above  fold,  it  would  be  a  hissing  horror 
and  ghastliness  that  no  human  eye  could  look  at  without 
being  blasted,  and  no  human  ear  could  hear  without  being 
stunned. 

Now,  how  will  all  these  scenes  of  iniquity  in  our  cities 
be  overcome  ?  They  will  not  be  overcome  until  the  church 
and  the  school  and  a  Christian  printing-press  kindle  all 
around  about  us  God's  street-lamp  of  the  Bible.  Send  the 
Bible  down  that  filthy  alley,  if  j^ou  would  have  it  cleansed. 
Send  it  against  those  decanters,  if  you  would  have  them 
smashed.  Send  it  against  those  chains,  if  you  would  have 
them  broken.  Send  it  through  all  tlie  ignorance  of  the 
city,  if  you  would  have  it  illumined  as  by  a  flash  from 
heaven's  morning.  The  Bible  can  do  it,  will  do  it.  Gath- 
er all  the  ignorance  and  the  wickedness  and  the  vice  of 
our  cities  in  one  great  pile — Alps  above  Alps,  Pj'renees 
above  Pyrenees,  Himalaya  above  Himalaya — and  then 
give  one  little  New  Testament  full  swing  against  the  side 
of  that  mountain,  and  down  it  would  come,  Alps  after  Alps, 
Pyrenees  after  Pyrenees,  Himalaya  after  Himalaya.  What 
is  the  difference  between  New  York  and  Pekin?  What 
is  the  difference  between  London  and  Aiadras?  Wiiat  is 
the  difference  between  Edinburgh  and  Canton  ?  No  differ- 
ence, save  that  which  the  Bible  makes.  O  city  missionary  ! 
O  philanthro})ist!  O  Chiistian!  go  everywhere,  and  kin- 
dle up  these  great  street-lamps  of  the  Gospel;  and  our 
city,  purified  and  cleansed,  will  proclaim  what  the  Psalmist 
so  long  ago  declared,  "  Thy  word  is  a  lamp." 

I  know  there  are  people  who  su[)pose  that  the  vice  of 
our  cities  is  going  to  conquer  the  virtue  of  the  people.     I 


294  TJIK  J. AMR 

do  not  believe  it.  Let  error  and  vice  run,  if  you  only  let 
truth  run  along  with  tliem.  Urged  on  by  skeptic's  shout 
and  transcendentalist's  spur,  let  error  run !  God's  angels 
of  wrath  are  in  hot  pursuit,  and,  quicker  than  eagle's  beak 
clutcheth  out  a  hawk's  heart,  God's  vengeance  will  tear  it 
to  pieces.  Let  it  run,  if  you  only  let  God's  Word  run  along 
■with  it. 

Still  further,  the  Bible  is  the  best  store-lamp.  Blessed 
is  the  merchant  who  under  its  glow  reads  his  ledger,  and 
transacts  his  business,  and  pockets  his  gains,  and  suffers  his 
losses.  It  may  be  well  to  have  a  fine  sky-light,  to  have  a 
magnificent  glass  show-window,  by  night  to  have  bronzed 
brackets  spouting  fire  in  a  very  palace  of  merchandise; 
but  if  you  have  not  this  eternal  lamp,  you  had  better  quit 
keeping  store.  What  is  the  reason  so  many  who  started 
in  merchandise,  with  good  principles  and  fair  prospects  and 
honorable  intentions,  have  become  gamblers,  and  defraud- 
ers,  and  knaves,  and  desperadoes,  and  liars,  and  thieves? 
They  did  not  have  the  right  kind  of  a  store-lamp.  Why 
is  it,  in  our  day,  merchandise  is  smitten  with  uncertainty, 
and  three-fourths  of  the  business  of  our  great  cities  is  only 
one  huge  species  of  gambling,  and  society  is  upturned  by 
false  assignments,  and  two-third  acts,  and  repudiations,  and 
imperiled  trust-funds,  and  fraudulent  certificates  of  stock, 
and  wild  schemes  in  railroads  without  any  track,  and  banks 
without  any  capital,  and  cities  without  any  houses,  and 
joint-stock  companies  without  any  conscience  ?  And  why 
are  ten  thousand  of  our  business  men  ridden  with  a  night- 
mare enough  to  crush  Hercules  and  Prometheus?  It  is 
the  want  of  a  right  kind  of  store-lamp.  What  ruined  the 
merchant  princes  of  Tyre,  that  great  city  of  fairs  and  ba- 
zaars and  palaces;  her  vessels  of  trade,  with  cedar  masts 


77//;  J.AM  p.  2  9.  J 

and  embroidered  sails  and  ivory  bcnclies,  driven  by  fierce 
blasts  on  Northern  waters,  and  then  dropping  down  on 
glassy  Indian  seas;  bringing  wine  from  Ilelbon,  and  char- 
iot cloths  from  Dcdan,  and  gold  and  spices  from  Eahmah, 
and  emerald  and  agate  fi'om  Syria;  her  waters  foaming 
with  innumerable  keels;  her  store- houses  bursting  with 
the  treasures  of  all  nations — that  queen  of  cities,  on  a  throne 
of  ivory  and  ebony,  under  a  crown  of  gold,  and  pearl,  and 
diamond,  and  carbuncle,  and  chrysoprase?  The  want  of  a 
right  kind  of  store-lamp.  If  the  principles  of  religion  had 
ruled  in  her  trade,  do  you  suppose  that  dry-rot  would  have 
sunk  the  ships,  and  that  vermin  would  have  eaten  up  her 
robes,  and  that  God's  mills  would  have  ground  up  the  ag- 
ate, and  that  fishermen  would  dry  their  nets  on  the  rocks 
which  once  were  aquake  with  the  roar  and  tread  of  a  great 
metropolis?  Oh,  what  thrones  have  fallen,  what  monu- 
ments have  crumbled,  what  fleets  have  sunk,  what  statues 
have  been  defaced,  what  barbarisms  have  been  created, 
what  civilization  retarded,  what  nations  damned,  all  for  the 
want  of  the  right  kind  of  a  store-lamp! 

Men  of  business!  take  your  Bibles  with  j-ou  to-morrow 
morning.  Place  them  in  your  store  or  shop.  Do  not  be 
ashamed  if  any  body  at  noon  finds  you  reading  the  Script- 
ures. It  is  safe  always  to  do  business  by  their  teachings. 
There  was  a  young  man  in  a  store  in  Boston,  standing  be- 
hind the  counter,  selling  goods.  A  gentleman  came  in, 
and  asked  for  some  Middlesex  cloths.  "Oh,"  said  the 
young  man,  "  we  haven't  any  Middlesex  cloths,  but  here  is 
something  just  as  good."  "No,"  replied  the  gentleman, 
"I  don't  want  them;"  and  he  passed  out.  The  head  man 
of  the  firm  came  down  to  the  young  man,  and  said,  "  What 
did  that  man  want?"     "He  wanted  Middlesex  cloths,"  re- 


296  THE  LAMP. 

plied  the  young  man.  "  Why  didn't  you  tell  Lim  they 
were  Middlesex  cloths?"  "Because  they  were  not,  sir." 
"Then,  you  can  take  your  hat  and  leave."  The  young 
man  took  his  hat  and  left.  He  went  into  merchandise  in 
Cincinnati,  went  on  up  till  he  became  a  merchant  prince, 
and  not  more  eminent  for  wealth  than  for  piety.  God  will 
never  let  a  young  man  suffer  for  doing  right.  Full  justice 
may  not  be  done  him  in  this  world  ;  but  in  the  last  day, 
before  an  assembled  universe,  it  will  be  found  out  whether 
or  not  they  were  Middlesex  cloths. 

Still  further,  the  Bible  is  the  best  chircli-lamp.  I  care 
not  how  many  chandeliers  there  may  be  in  a  church,  how 
many  brilliant  lights  there  ma}'^  be,  the  Word  of  God  is  the 
best  church-lamp.  Oh,  is  there  any  thing  more  beautiful 
than  an  audience  gathered  on  the  Sabbath  for  Christian 
worship?  There  may  be  no  dazzle  of  theatric  assemblage, 
there  may  be  no  glitter  of  foot -lights,  there  may  be  no 
allegoric  images  blossoming  from  pit  to  dome;  but  there 
is  something  in  the  place  and  in  the  occasion  that  makes 
it  supernatural.  In  the  light  of  this  lamp  I  see  your  foces 
kindle  with  a  great  joy.  Glorious  church-lamp,  this  Bible ! 
Luther  found  it  in  the  cloister  at  Erfurt,  and  he  lifted  it 
until  the  monasteries  and  cathedrals  of  German}^,  and  Italy, 
and  France,  and  England,  and  the  world  saw  its  illumina- 
tion. It  shone  under  the  trnp- doors.  It  looked  behind 
the  curtains.  It  shone  under  the  breastplate  of  sacerdotal 
authority ;  and  in  the  mosques  of  Turkej^,  and  in  the  pa- 
godas of  India,  and  in  the  ice  huts  of  Greenland,  and  in 
the  mud  hovels  of  Africa,  and  in  the  temples  of  China, 
God's  regenerated  children,  in  musical  Tamil,  and  sweet 
Italian,  and  nasal  Chinese,  and  harsh  Choctaw,  cried  out, 
"Thy  word  is  a  lamp."     It  throws  its  light  on  the  pulpit. 


TIIK  L.IJUP.  297 

making  a  bulwark  of  truth  ;  on  tbe  baptismal  cup,  until 
its  waters  glitter  like  the  crystals  of  heaven.  It  strikes 
penitence  into  the  prayers  and  gladness  into  the  thanksgiv- 
ing. It  changes  into  a  church  John  Bunyan's  prison,  and 
Covenanter's  cave,  and  Calvin's  castle,  and  Huss's  stake, 
and  Hugh  M'Kail's  scaffold  of  mai'tynlom.  Zwinglius  car- 
ried it  into  Switzerland,  and  John  Wickfield  into  England, 
and  John  Knox  into  Scotland,  and  Jehudi  Ashmun  into 
Africa. 

Begone,  ye  scoffers!  Down  to  the  lowest  pit,  ye  emissa- 
ries of  darkness!  for  by  the  throne  of  an  omnipotent  judg- 
ment I  declare  it  that  all  iniquity  shall  fall,  and  all  bond- 
age be  broken,  and  all  wounds  be  healed,  and  all  darkness 
be  dispelled,  when  God's  truth  shall  go  forth  "as  a  lamp 
that  burneth."  We  want  no  sappers  or  miners  to  level 
the  wall ;  we  want  no  axemen  or  engineers  to  prepare 
the  way;  we  want  no  glittering  steel  or  booming  gun  or 
howlinj?  Ilotchkiss  shell  to  get  us  the  victorv,  for  the 
mountains  are  full  of  horses  and  chariots  of  fire.  Halle- 
lujah !  for  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  are  become  the 
kingdoms  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  I  do  not  wonder 
that  the  stranger  who  sat  the  other  day  beside  me  in  the 
rail-car  reading  his  Bible,  after  he  had  concluded  his  read- 
ing, closed  it,  and  kissed  it,  and  put  it  in  his  pocket.  There 
have  been  times  when  you  did  the  same.  When  all  else 
failed  you,  it  was  so  bright,  it  was  so  loving,  it  was  so  sj'm- 
pathetic  a  book  that  you,  too,  kissed  it. 

Still  further,  the  Bible  is  a  sepulcliral  lamp.  You  know 
that  the  ancient  Egyptians  used  to  keep  lights  burning  in 
the  tombs  of  their  dead.  These  lights  were  ke])t  up  for 
scores,  even  hundreds,  of  years.  Friends  would  come  from 
generation  to  generation  and  put  oil  in  the  lamps,  and  it 

13* 


298  THE  LAMP. 

was  considered  a  disaster  if  those  lamps  went  out.  You 
and  I  will  some  day  go  down  into  the  house  of  the  dead. 
Some  have  looked  upon  it  as  an  unknown  land,  and,  when 
they  have  thought  of  it,  their  knees  have  knocked  together 
and  their  hearts  fainted.  There  were  whole  generations 
of  men  that  had  no  comfort  about  death,  no  view  of  the 
eternal  world;  and  whenever  they  brought  their  friends 
and  put  them  away  into  the  dust,  they  said,  without  any 
alleviation,  "This  is  horrid!  this  is  horrid!"  And  it  was. 
The  grave  is  the  deepest,  ghastliest  pit  that  a  man  ever 
looks  into,  unless  the  lamp  of  God's  word  flashes  into  it. 
For  whole  ages  men  thought  that  the  sepulchre  was  a  den 
where  a  great  monster  gorged  himself  on  human  carcasses. 
"I  will  put  an  end  to  that,"  said  Jesus  of  Nazareth;  "I 
will  with  mine  own  voice  go  down  and  make  darkness 
flee ;"  and  as  he  stepped  out  from  the  gate  of  heaven,  all 
the  grave-yards  of  earth  cried,  "Come!  come!"  And  he 
came  down,  bringing  a  great  many  beautiful  lights;  and 
above  this  babe's  grave  he  hung  a  light,  and  over  this 
mother's  tomb  he  hung  a  light,  and  over  this  wife's  grave 
he  hung  a  light,  and  over  all  the  sleeping- places  of  the 
Christian  dead  he  hung  a  lis-ht.  Then  he  uttered  his 
voice,  and  it  ran  along  under  the  ground  from  city  to  city, 
and  along  under  the  sea  from  continent  to  continent,  until 
mausoleum  and  sarcophagus  and  sepulchre  throbbed  with 
the  joy :  "I  am  the  resurrection  and  the  life;  he  that  be- 
lieveth  in  me,  though  he  w^ere  dead,  yet  shall  he  live." 
And  now,  if  Greenwood  and  Laurel  Hill  and  Mount  Au- 
burn could  break  their  beautiful  silence  and  should  speak, 
their  lips  of  bronze  and  granite  would  break  forth  in  the 
strains  of  my  text,  "  Thy  word  is  a  lamp." 

O  ye  bruised  souls!     0  ye  who  have  been  cutting  your- 


THE  LAMP.  299 

selves  among  the  tombs!  O  ye  who  Lave  been  sowing 
seed  for  the  resurrection-day  !  0  ye  of  the  broken  heart! 
I  come  out  to-day  and  put  into  your  hand  this  glorious  Gos- 
pel lamp.  It  will  throw  a  glow  of  consolation  over  your 
bereft  spirit.  "Weeping  may  endui'e  for  a  night,  but  joy 
Cometh  in  the  morning.''  "They  that  sow^  in  tears  shall 
reap  in  ]oyy 

Rabbi  Mier  went  off  from  home  to  be  gone  a  few  days, 
and  left  two  beautiful  boys.  While  he  was  gone,  the  two 
lads  died.  Rabbi  Mier  returned,  not  knowing  that  any 
thing  had  happened.  His  Christian  wife  knew  he  would 
be  overcome  with  grief,  and  she  met  him  at  the  door  and 
said  to  him,  "My  husband,  I  once  had  two  beautiful  jew- 
els loaned  to  me.  I  had  them  for  a  little  while.  And,  do 
you  know,  while  you  were  gone  the  owner  came  for  them. 
Ought  I  to  have  given  them?"  "Of  course,"  said  Rabbi 
Mier,  "you  ought  to  have  given  them  up;  3-ou  say  they 
were  only  loaned."  Then  she  called  her  husband  to  the 
side-room,  and  removed  the  cloth  that  covered  the  dead 
children.  After  Rabbi  Mier  had  for  a  few^  moments  given 
wa}'-  to  his  grief,  he  rose  up  and  said,  "  Now  I  know^  what 
you  meant  by  the  borrowed  jewels.  '  The  Lord  gave,  and 
riie  Lord  hath  taken  away.  Blessed  be  the  name  of  the 
Lord.' "     And  so  Rabbi  Mier  was  comforted. 

Let  this  sepulchral  light  gild  all  the  graves  of  your  dead. 
May  this  lamp  of  the  text  be  set  in  all  3'our  parlors,  in  all 
your  streets,  in  all  your  stores,  in  all  your  churches,  in  all 
your  sepulchres!     Amen. 


goo  THE  DYING  NEED   OF  THE  CHURCH. 


THE  DYING  NEED  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

"  Behold,  I  will  send  my  messenger,  and  he  shall  prepare  the  way  before 
me :  and  the  Lord,  whom  ye  seek,  slmll  suddenly  come  to  his  temple,  even 
the  messenger  of  the  covenant,  whom  ye  delight  in :  behold,  he  shall  come, 
saith  the  Lord  of  hosts." — Malachi  iii.,  1. 

SOMETIMES  a  minister's  subject  is  suggested  by  his 
artistic  tastes ;  sometimes,  by  the  occurrences  of  the 
previous  week ;  sometimes,  by  a  hearer  who  desires  some 
particular  reh'gious  theme  discussed.  My  subject  comes 
in  no  such  way.  It  drops  straight  from  God  into  my  heart. 
Give  me  your  prayerful  and  intense  listening. 

I  want  to  show  this  morning,  so  far  as  God  may  help 
me,  that  the  dying  need  of  the  Church  universal  is  a 
mighty  awakening.  The  ox  in  the  pasture- field  looks 
around,  and  perhaps  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  all  the 
world  is  a  clover-field.  So  we,  standing  in  the  midst  of 
luxuriant  religious  advantages,  might  think,  perhaps,  that 
the  earth  is  covered  with  the  knowledge  of  God  ;  but  s6 
far  from  that,  if  this  platform  were  the  world,  so  much  of 
it  as  I  now  cover  with  my  right  foot  would  represent  all 
that  is  conquered  for  Emmanuel.  Or  if  this  whole  Tab- 
ernacle were  the  world,  then  one  pew  would  represent  so 
much  of  it  as  the  grace  of  God  has  already  conquered. 
Oh,  there  is  need  of  a  radical  change!  Something  must  be 
done  ;  and  I  shall  show  this  morning  that  the  great — ay,  as 
I  liave  already  said,  the  dying — need  of  the  Church  is  a 
great  awakening. 


THE  DYIXO  NEED  OF  THE  CHURCH.  301 

I  learn  this  need,  in  the  first  place,  from  the  coldness  in 
the  majoriiij  of  church  members.  If  a  religious  society  have 
a  thousand  members,  eight  hundred  of  them  are  sound 
asleep.  If  it  have  five  hundred  members,  four  hundred 
are  lethargic.  If  the  Christians  can  rally — that  is,  the  pro- 
fessed Christians — for  communion-day,  and  succeed  in  not 
dropping  the  wine-cup,  how  many  of  them  are  satisfied? 
If  it  be  a  choice  between  Christ  and  the  world,  the  world 
has  it.  You  know  it  as  well  as  I  do.  If  a  religious  meet- 
ing be  on  a  certain  night,  and  on  that  same  night  there  be 
an  extraordinary  operatic  entertainment,  or  a  social  gath- 
ering, or  a  literary  club,  or  a  political  meeting,  or  a  Free- 
masons' society,  or  an  Odd-fellows'  association,  3'ou  know 
which  they  go  to.  God  there  fiiirly  demonstrating  that 
while  such  professed  Christians  pretend  to  be  on  his  side, 
they  are  really  on  the  other  side  ;  for  there  is  a  point-blank 
issue  between  Christ  and  the  world,  and  the  world  has  it. 
You  know  very  well,  whether  you  are  a  professed  Chris- 
tian or  not,  that  the  dividing  line  between  the  Church  and 
the  world  to-day  is — like  the  equator,  or  the  arctic  or  an- 
tarctic circle — an  imaginary  line;  and  that  there  are  men 
and  women  sworn  of  God  who  sit  discussing  infinitesimal 
questions,  "Shall  we  dance?  Shall  we  play  cards?  Shall 
we  go  to  the  theatre?  Shall  we  attend  the  opera?"  while 
there  arc  five  hundred  millions  of  the  race  going  down 
to  darkness  unwarned.  These  sham  Christians  v/ill  go 
on,  occasionally  taking  a  little  religion  with  the  tip-end 
of  their  fingers,  sauntering  on  lazily  toward  the  bar  of 
Christ,  until  they  come  in  front  of  God's  swift  revolving 
mill,  and  find  themselves  to  be  "  the  chaff  which  the  wind 
driveth  away." 

Oh,  how  much  dead  wood  we  have  in  all  our  churches! 


302  THE  DYING  NEED   OF  THE  CHURCH. 

The  day  of  judgment  will  make  a  fearful  thinning- out 
among  professed  Christians.  I  suppose  it  will  be  found 
on  that  day  that  there  are  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men 
who  have  their  names  on  the  church  books  who  really 
made  religion  a  second-rate  or  third-rate  thing;  living  for 
themselves,  unmindful  of  God  and  the  salvation  of  the 
race,  and  then  tumbling  over  the  embankment  where 
Judas  went,  and  Achan  went,  and  where  all  those  shall  go 
who  do  not  make  religion  the  primordial  thing — the  first 
and  the  last  matter  of  the  soul.  O  worldly  professor  of 
religion,  vacillating  professor,  idle  professor,  tremble  be- 
fore God  to-day  !  Do  you  not  know  that  if  you  die  as  you 
are,  all  the  communion-tables  at  which  you  have  ever  sat 
Vv'ill  lift  up  hands  of  blood,  crying  for  your  condemnation? 
And  your  neglected  Bible,  and  your  prayerless  pillow,  will 
cry,  "Go  down!  go  down!  You  pretended  to  have  re- 
ligion, but  you  had  none.  Out  of  the  seven  days  of  the 
week,  you  gave  not  five  hours  to  Christ.  You  broke  your 
sacramental  oath.  Go  down  !  go  down !"  And  the  fieri- 
est and  mightiest  thunder-bolt  of  God's  indignation  that 
is  ever  forged  will  smite  you  into  darkness.  I  would 
rather  be  the  man,  in  the  last  day,  who  has  never  seen  a 
church,  than  you  who  professed  to  be  so  much,  and  to  do 
so  much,  and  yet  did  nothing!  You  shall  perish  in  the 
way  when  God's  wrath  is  kindled  but  a  little.  O  worldly 
professor  of  religion  ! — and  there  are  hundreds  of  them  here 
to-da}^,  I  am  aiming  at  the  mark — if  you  could  now  re- 
alize your  true  condition  and  your  true  position  before 
God,  you  would  bite  your  lip  until  the  blood  came;  you 
would  wring  3'our  hands  until  the  bones  cracked ;  you 
would  utter  a  cry  that  would  send  this  whole  audience  to 
their  feet  with  a  hori'or.     ]\I;iy  God  wake  you  up,  worldly 


THE  LYJXa  XEED   OF  THE  CHURCH.  303 

professor  of  religion,  before  you  wake  up  in  the  barred  and 
flaming  dungeons  of  a  destroyed  eternity!  When  you 
look  abroad  and  see  lethargy  among  the  professors  of  re- 
ligion almost  all  the  world  over,  do  you  not  see  that  there 
is  a  need  that  the  bugles,  and  the  cymbals,  and  the  drums, 
and  the  trumpets  of  all  eaith  and  heaven  call  upon  the 
Church  to  wake  up  the  dormant  professors  of  religion? 
"Awake,  thou  that  sleepest;  awake,  and  Christ  shall  give 
thee  light." 

Still  further,  I  see  a  need  for  a  great  awakening  in  the 
fact  that  those  of  us  wlio  ineach  the  Gospel  Jiave  so  little  enthu- 
siasm and  zeal  cojnjMred  with  ivhat  we  ought  to  have.  Now, 
you  sec,  the  gun  kicks.  It  is  a  tremendous  thing  to  stand 
before  an  audience  on  Sabbath-days,  realizing  the  fact 
tliat  the  mnjority  of  them  will  believe  what  you  say  about 
God  and  the  soul  and  the  great  future !  Suppose  a  man 
asked  of  you  the  road  to  a  certain  place,  and  you  care- 
lessly and  falsely  told  him,  and  afterward  you  heard  that 
through  lack  of  right  direction  that  man  wandered  on  the 
mountains,  fell  over  the  rocks,  and  lost  his  life.  You 
could  not  forgive  yourself.  You  would  say,  "I  wish  I 
had  taken  more  time  with  that  man.  I  wish  I  had  given 
him  specific  directions  so  he  would  not  have  been  lost. 
How  sorry  I  feel  about  it!"  But,  oh,  to  misdirect  the 
eternal  interests  of  a  large  congregation!  IIow  cold  and 
stolid  we  stand  in  our  pulpits,  actually  sometimes  priding 
ourselves  on  our  deliberation,  when  we  have  no  right  to 
be  cold,  and  ought  to  be  almost  frantic  with  the  perils  that 
threaten  our  hearers;  so  much  so  that  some  of  us  give  no 
warning  at  all,  and  we  stand  Sabbath  after  Sabbath  talk- 
ing about  "human  development,"  and  we  jiat  men  on  the 
back  and  wc  please  them,  and  we  hide  eternal  retribution, 


304  THE  DYING  NEED   OF  THE  CHURCH. 

and  we  sing  them  all  down  through  the  rapids  to  the  last 
plunge.     Or,  as  the  poet  has  it, 

"Smooth  down  the  stubborn  text  to  ears  polite, 
And  snugly  keep  damnation  out  of  sight ! " 

Oh,  my  brethren  in  the  ministry — for  I  see  them  always 
in  the  audience— my  brethren  in  the  ministry,  we  can  not 
afford  to  do  that  way.  If  you  prophesy  good  things, 
smooth  things,  to  your  people,  without  regard  to  their 
character,  what  chance  will  there  be  for  you  in  the  day 
when  you  meet  them  at  the  bar  of  God  ?  You  had  better 
stand  clear  of  them  then.  They  will  tear  you  to  pieces. 
They  will  say,  "I  heard  you  preach  five  hundred  times, 
and  I  admired  your  philosophic  disquisition,  and  your 
graceful  gestures,  and  your  nicely  molded  sentences,  cur- 
vilinear and  stelliform,  and  I  thought  you  were  the  prince 
of  proprieties ;  but  you  didn't  help  me  to  prepare  for  this 
day.  Cursed  be  3''0ur  rhetoric,  cursed  be  your  art!  lam 
going  down,  and  I'll  take  you  with  me.  It  is  your  fault; 
witness  all  the  hosts  of  heaven  and  all  the  hosts  of  dark- 
ness, it  is  your  fault,  sir;"  and  the  chorus  will  come  up 
from  all  worlds,  "His  fault!  his  fliult!"  All  of  us  who 
preach  this  Gospel  need  to  speak  as  though  the  pulpit 
quaked  with  the  tramp  of  eternal  realities;  as  though  be- 
neath us  were  the  bursting  graves  of  the  resurrection 
morn ;  as  though  rising  above  us,  tier  above  tier,  were  the 
myriads  of  heaven  looking  down,  ready  to  applaud  our 
fidelity,  or  hiss  at  our  stolidity,  while  coming  through  the 
Sabbath  air  were  the  long,  deep,  harrowing  groans  of  the 
dying  nations  that  are  never  dead.  May  God  with  a  torch 
from  heaven  set  all  the  pulpits  of  England,  and  Scotland, 
and  Ireland,  and  the  United  States  on  fire  I    As  for  myself, 


THE  DYING  NEED   OF  THE  CHURCH.  305 

standing  here  in  this  presence  this  morning,  I  feel  as  if  I 
had  never  begun  to  preach.  If  God  will  forgive  me  for 
the  past,  I  will  do  better  for  the  future. 

"  'Tis  not  a  cause  of  small  import 
The  pastor's  care  demands ; 
But  what  might  fill  an  angel's  heart, 
It  filled  a  Saviour's  hand. 

"They  watch  for  souls  for  which  the  Lord 
Did  heavenly  bliss  forego  ; 
For  souls  that  must  forever  live 
In  raptures  or  in  woe." 

Still  further,  I  see  a  need  for  a  great  awakening  in  the 
fact  that  the  kingdom  of  God  is  mahiiig  so  slow  progress.  I 
simply  state  a  flict  when  I  say  that  in  many  places  the 
Church  is  surrendering,  and  the  world  is  conquering. 
Where  there  is  one  man  brouoht  into  the  kinodom  of 
God  through  Christian  instrumentality,  there  are  ten  men 
dragged  down  by  dissipations.  Fifty  grog-shops  built  to 
one  church  established.  Literary  journals  in  different 
parts  of  the  country  filled  with  scum  and  dandruff  and 
slag,  controlled  by  the  very  scullions  of  society,  depraving 
every  thing  they  put  their  hands  on.  Three  hundred  and 
ten  newspapers,  journals,  and  magazines  in  New  York, 
and  more  than  two  hundred  of  them  depraving  to  the  pub- 
lic taste,  if  not  positively  inimical  to  our  holy  Christianity. 
Look  abroad  and  see  the  surrender,  even  on  the  part  of 
what  pretend  to  be  Christian  churches,  to  spii'itualism  and 
humanitarianism  and  all  the  forms  of  devilism.  If  a  man 
stand  in  his  pulpit  and  say  that  unless  you  be  born  again 
you  will  be  lost,  do  not  the  tight  kid-gloves  of  the  Chris- 
tian, diamonds  bursting  through,  go  up  to  their  foreheads 
in  humiliation  and  shame?     It  is  not  elegant.     A  mighty 


806  THE  DYING  NEED  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

host  in  the  Christian  Church,  positively  professing  Chris- 
tianity, who  do  not  believe  in  the  Bible  out  and  out,  in 
and  in,  from  the  first  word  of  the  first  verse  of  the  first 
chapter  of  the  book  of  Genesis  down  to  the  last  word  of 
the  last  verse  of  the  last  chapter  of  the  book  of  Eevelation. 
And  when,  a  few  Sabbaths  ago,  I  stood  in  this  pulpit,  and 
said,  "  I  fear  that  some  of  this  audience  will  be  lost  for  the 
rejection  of  Christ,"  there  were  four  or  five  of  the  daily 
papers  that  threw  up  their  hands  in  surprise  at  it. 

Oh,  we  have  magnificent  church  machinery  in  this  coun- 
try!  We  have  sixty  thousand  American  ministers;  we 
have  costly  music  ;  we  have  great  Sunday-schools ;  and  yet 
I  give  you  the  appalling  statistic  that  in  the  last  twenty- 
five  years,  laying  aside  last  year,  the  statistics  of  which  I 
have  not  yet  seen — within  the  last  twenty-five  years  the 
churches  of  God  in  this  country  have  averaged  less  than 
two  conversions  a  year  each.  There  has  been  an  average 
of  four  or  five  deaths  in  the  churches.  How  soon,  at  that 
rate,  will  this  world  be  brought  to  God  ?  We  gain  two ; 
we  lose  four.  Eternal  God,  what  will  this  come  to?  I 
tell  you  plainly  that  while  here  and  there  a  regiment  of 
the  Christian  soldiery  is  advancing,  the  Church  is  falling 
back  for  the  most  part,  and  falling  back,  and  falling  back ; 
and  if  you  do  not  come  to  complete  rout — ay,  to  ghastly 
Bull  Eun  defeat  —  it  will  be  because  some  individual 
churches  hurl  themselves  to  the  front,  and  ministers  of 
Christ,  trampling  on  the  favor  of  this  world  and  sacrificing 
every  thing,  shall  snatch  up  the  torn  and  shattered  banner 
of  Emmanuel,  and  rush  ahead,  crying,  "  On  !  on  !  This  is 
no  time  to  run ;  this  is  the  time  to  advance." 

I  see,  still  further,  the  need  of  a  great  awakening  in  the 
multitudinous  going-down  of  unforgiven  souls.     Since  many 


THE  DYING  NEED   OF  TUB  CHUIiCH.  307 

of  you  came  on  the  stage  of  action,  a  whole  generation  lias 
gone  into  the  gates  of  eternit3^  Your  opportunity  to  act 
upon  them  is  gone.  They  have  disappeared  from  the 
churches,  from  the  stores,  the  shops,  the  streets,  fi'om  the 
liomes.  Many  of  them  are  now — what  is  the  use  of  my 
hidinfjr  the  fact  and  bcin"^  the  cowaid  in  rctrard  to  it?  no, 
I  will  tell  you  just  as  it  is — many  of  them  are  going  out 
of  this  world  without  one  item  of  pi'eparation.  Their  soul 
dropped  flat  into  the  lost  world.  That  is,  if  the  Bible  is 
true;  and  I  am  supposing  it  is.  You,  O  Christian  man! 
had  an  opportunity  of  meeting  them.  You  did  meet  them. 
You  talked  with  them  on  other  subjects.  You  had  an 
opportunity  of  saying  the  saving  word,  and  you  did  not 
say  that  saving  word.  Just  think  of  that!  Oh,  where  is 
the  fountain  where,  with  sleeves  rolled  up,  we  may  wash 
our  hands  from  the  blood  of  souls?  There  is  no  need, 
perhaps,  of  mourning  over  that  just  now.  We  can  not 
change  it.  They  are  dead,  and  they  are  destroj'ed — those 
who  believed  not  in  Christ — they  are  destroyed. 

The  only  question  is,  whether,  as  Christian  men  and 
women,  we  can  now  interrupt  the  other  procession  that  is 
marching  down,  and  will,  after  a  while,  if  unarrested  by 
God's  grace,  fliU  off.  There  are  going  out  from  our  stores 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  clerks;  going  out  from  our  fac- 
tories hundreds  of  thousands  of  operatives  ;  there  are  going 
out  of  our  colleges  hundreds  of  thousands  of  students;  there 
are  ffoing  out  of  our  fields  hundreds  of  thousands  of  hus- 
bandmen,  to  join  the  ranks  of  death.  They  are  fighting 
their  way  down.  They  storm  and  take  ever}''  impediment 
put  in  their  way ;  and  who  will  throw  himself  in  the  way 
of  this  stam]-)ede'of  dying  men  and  women — who? — crying, 
"Halt!  hall!"     If  there  be  ciuht  hundred  millions  of  the 


308  THE  DYINO  NEED   OF  THE  CHUIiCH. 

race  unblessed,  and  the  churches  average  two  souls  saved 
in  a  year,  will  you  let  this  generation  go  down,  and  the 
next,  and  the  next? 

Is  it  not  time  for  something  desperate?  Inanimate  so- 
licitation will  not  do.  They  will  not  stop  for  that.  You 
need  a  momentum  gathered  by  a  whole  night's  wrestle 
with  the  omnipotent  God.  Oh,  these  dying  souls!  these 
dying  souls!  What  shall  we  say  to  them?  What  shall 
we  do  for  them?  Catch  them  before  they  make  the  last 
spring.  Put  down  every  thing  else,  and  run  for  their  res- 
cue. To-morrow  may  be  too  late.  To-night  may  be  too 
late.  Three  o'clock  this  afternoon  may  be  too  late.  Now 
reach  over  the  pew  and  seize  that  soul  before  it  flashes  out 
of  your  sight  forever.  Their  house  is  on  fire,  and  no  lad- 
der to  the  window.  Their  ship  is  going  down,  and  no  life- 
boat. 0  men  and  women  of  God,  awake!  awake!  Fly! 
fly!  Death!  death!  Judgment!  judgment!  Heaven! 
heaven!  Hell!  hell!  Oh  that  all  rewards  and  punish- 
ments, all  joys  and  sorrows,  and  the  agonizing  and  raptur- 
ous vociferation  of  three  worlds  would  arouse  you  to-day! 
The  death-knell  of  a  great  multitude  of  souls  is  tolling  now, 
and  your  hand  is  on  the  rope.  O  God!  flame  upon  us 
these  overwhelming  realities!  Kill  our  stolidity.  Knock 
from  under  us  our  couches  of  ease.  Consume  our  indiffer- 
ence, and  throw  us  into  the  battle.  An  eternity  of  work 
— an  eternity  of  work  to  do  in  ten  years.  Ay,  perhaps  in 
one  year,  perhaps  in  one  month,  perhaps  in  one  day,  per- 
haps in  one  hour,  perhaps  in  one  minute,  perhaps  in  one 
second,  and  this  the  last.  But  no  one  drops  down,  and  so 
I  think  God  is  going  to  spare  us  to  wake  up  out  of  our  in- 
dolence and  realize  the  truth  that  the  dying  need  of  the 
Church  to-day  is  a  great  awakening. 


THE  DYTXG  NEED   OF  THE  CHURCH.  309 

I  need  not  rehearse  in  this  presence  wliat  God  has  done 
for  us  as  an  individual  church.  You  have  heard  with 
your  own  ears  the  cries  for  rnerc}^,  and  you  have  seen  the 
raining  tears  of  repentance,  for  tlic  last  eighteen  months. 
I  do  not  believe  that  there  is  an}^  church  in  this  land  that 
owes  God  more  of  gratitude  than  this  church  owes  him  to- 
day. But  who  can  count  the  number  of  our  permanent 
congregation  who  are  not  Christians?  And  what  about 
the  eighty  or  one  hundred  thousand  souls  of  strangers  that, 
daring  the  last  year,  floated  in  and  out  our  assemblages? 
and  what  about  the  eternity  of  those  who  are  now,  and  will 
be  this  year,  in  our  permanent  congregation,  and  the  eighty 
or  one  hundred  thousand  souls  that  during  this  coming 
twelve  months  will  float  in  and  out  our  services,  and  the 
vaster  audience  to  whom  this  church  preaches  week  by 
week  on  both  sides  of  the  sea  through  the  Christian  print- 
ing-press? Oh,  I  feel  as  if  I  should  sink  down,  sometimes. 
I  feel  almost  wild  with  the  sense  of  responsibility.  Shall  I 
meet  them  at  the  last,  and  I  know  I  have  not  half  done  my 
duty?  Shall  you  meet  them  at  the  last,  and  I  know  that 
you  have  not  done  yours?  0  fathers  and  mothers,  broth- 
ers and  sisters  in  Jesus  Christ,  we  must  get  on  faster  than 
this!  We  want  not  so  much  a  shower  of  blessings  as  a 
deluge  ;  not  so  much  a  regiment  as  a  phalanx,  as  a  battal- 
ion. Can  you  get  it?  Yes.  Nothing  conjectural  about 
it ;  nothing  adventitious  about  it.  Yes,  if  you  will  pray  for 
it,  and  toil  for  it,  and  be  sure  it  is  coming.  If  John  Liv- 
ingston, in  a  small  church,  in  one  service  had  five  hundred 
souls  brought  to  God,  why  may  you  not,  in  a  larger  church, 
have  three  thousand  souls  as  easily  as  he  had  five  hun- 
dred ?  It  is  the  same  Gospel.  John  Livingston  did  not 
save  them.     It  is  the  same  Holy  Ghost.     It  is  the  same 


310  THE  DYING  NEED   OF  THE  CHURCH. 

greot  Jeliovab.  If  John  Knox  could  put  the  lever  of 
prayer  under  Scotland  until  he  moved  it  from  end  to  end, 
shall  you  not  by  the  lever  of  importunate  petition  move 
this  whole  city  of  Brooklyn,  from  the  East  River  to  New 
Utrecht,  and  from  New  Utrecht  to  Ilunter's  Point?  God 
can  do,  and  he  will  do,  it,  if  you  mightily  and  relentlessly 
ask  him  to  do  it.  Oh,  fling  body,  mind,  and  soul,  and  eter- 
nal destiny  into  this  one  thing.  Swing  out  and  enlarge  in 
your  prayerful  expectations.  You  asked  God  for  hundreds 
of  souls,  and  he  gave  them  to  you ;  and  I  sometimes  heard 
you  ask  for  thousands ;  and  1  am  very  certain  that  if  you 
asked  for  thousands  with  the  same  faith  that  you  had  asked 
for  hundreds,  God  would  have  given  you  thousands.  There 
is  no  need,  in  this  presence,  of  bringing  the  old  stereotj'ped 
illustrations  of  the  fact  that  God  hears  prayer,  nor  telling 
you  about  Hezekiah's  restored  health,  and  about  Elijah 
and  the  great  rain,  and  about  the  post-mortem  examination 
of  the  apostle  James,  which  found  that  his  knees  had  be- 
come callous  by  much  praying;  nor  of  Richard  Baxter,  who 
stained  the  walls  of  his  study  with  the  breath  of  prayer ; 
nor  of  John  Welch  and  the  midnight  plaid  ;  nor  of  George 
Whitefield  flat  on  his  face  before  God.  No  need  of  my 
telling  you  these  things,  I  turn  in  on  your  own  conscious- 
ness, and  I  review  the  memory  of  that  time  when  your 
own  soul  was  sinking,  and  God  heard  3'onr  cry ;  and  of 
that  time  when  your  child  was  dying,  and  God  heard  your 
petition ;  and  of  that  time  when  3'our  fortune  failed,  and 
God  set  in  your  empty  pantry  the  cruse  of  oil  and  the 
measure  of  meal.  I  want  no  illustration  at  all.  I  just  take 
.1,  ladder  with  three  rungs,  and  set  it  down  at  your  feet. 
Ob  that  you  would  mount  it,  and,  if  3'oa  will  look  off, 
see  the  salvation  of  ten  thousand  of  your  fellow -citizens. 


THE  DYI.ya  XEED   OF  THE  CHURCH.  311 

"Apk,  and  it  shall  be  given  yon;  seek,  and  yc  sliall  find; 
knoek,  and  it  shall  be  opened  unto  you."  Put  your  right 
foot  on  the  lower  rung  of  that  ladder,  and  ^-our  lefc  on  the 
second  rung  of  it,  and  that  will  bring  your  right  foot  on 
the  top  rung.  Then  hold  fast,  and  look  out  and  see  the 
wave  of  the  Divine  blessing  dashing  higher  than  the  top- 
gallants of  your  shipping.     Oh  yes,  God  is  ready  to  hear. 

I  think  the  Lord  puts  on  us,  as  a  Church,  a  great  re- 
sponsibility. We  set  our  bands  to  the  work  of  evangeliza- 
tion. We  are  doing  nothing  else  here.  We  do  not  want 
to  do  any  thing  else  here  but  this  work  of  evangelization  ; 
that  is,  we  want  to  bring  men  and  women  to  Christ,  and 
bring  them  now. 

I  do  not  know  hov/  you  feel,  my  brethren,  but  my  heart 
i.s  breaking  with  a  longing  that  I  have  for  the  redem])tion 
of  this  people.  If  God  does  not  give  me  my  prayer,  I 
can  not  endure  it.  I  offer  myself,  I  offer  my  life,  to  this 
work.  Take  it,  0  Lord  Jesus!  and  slay  me  if  that  be  best. 
Whether  by  my  life  or  by  my  death,  may  a  great  multi- 
tude of  souls  here  bo  born  to  God.  If  front  the  mound  of 
my  grave  more  can  step  into  the  kingdom  of  God  than 
through  my  life,  let  me  now  lie  down  to  the  last  sleep. 
But  only  let  the  people  be  saved.  Lord  Jesus,  it  is  sweet 
to  live  for  thee;  mcthinks  it  would  be  sweet  to  die  for 
thee.  If  in  the  Napoleonic  wars  six  millions  fell;  if  in  the 
wars  of  the  Eoman  empire  one  hundred  and  eighty  mill- 
ions fell,  shall  there  not  be  a  great  many  in  our  day  who 
are  willing  to  sacrifice,  not  only  worldly  ambition,  but  sac- 
rifice all  for  Ciirist?  I  wish  we  knew  how  to  pray.  I  do 
not.  I  mean  the  prayer  that  always  brings  the  blessing. 
I  wish  we  might  be  so  overborne  with  anxiety  for  the  sal- 
vation of  men   that  from  ten  o'clock  at  niuht  until  six 


312  THE  DYING  NEED   OF  THE  CHURCH. 

o'clock  in  the  morning  sleep  would  fly  from  our  eyelids. 
Oh  for  a  whole  night  of  prayer!  I  have  a  notion  to  try 
it.  I  will  try  it.  Will  you?  Shall  it  be  to-night,  or  to- 
morrow night,  or  the  next  night?  If  there  come  to  your 
soul  such  a  night  as  that — a  sleepless  night,  because  full  of 
prayer  to  God  for  his  blessing  on  your  own  soul  and  on 
the  souls  of  others — then,  let  there  be  mourning  that  night. 
Break  forth  into  weeping  that  night  over  your  sins.  O 
Church  of  God,  cry  aloud  for  mercy  on  your  own  souls  and 
on  the  souls  of  others.  Let  there  be  wailing,  wailing,  wail- 
ing. Let  there  be  shouting,  shouting,  shouting.  But,  lest 
God  may  not  leave  us  a  night  for  praj^er;  lest,  before  the 
setting  of  this  day's  sun,  our  account  be  made  up,  let  us  now 
go  down  so  low  before  God  that  there  shall  be  no  lower 
depth  of  humiliation.  Oh  for  a  blood-red  prayer  that  will 
bow  the  heavens,  and  make  all  the  unforgiven  souls  in  this 
house  surrender  just  now  to  the  bleeding,  groaning,  dying 
Jesus — a  blessing  that  shall  shake  this  house  as  by  tempest 
and  earthquake!  To  your  knees,  to  your  knees,  ye  who 
know  how  to  pray.  But  I  can  not"  lead  you  in  such  a 
prayer  as  that.  Let  every  one  pray  for  himself.  Let  the 
prayer  be  in  silence,  God  only  hearing.  Every  one  pra}'-- 
ing  for  himself  and  praying  for  others,  that  even  now  the 
cloud  of  mercy  may  drop.  Hush !  all  the  voices.  Let  it 
be  silent  prayer  I 


VIEW  FROM  THE  PALACE   WIXDOW.  313 


VIEW  FEOAL  THE  PALACE  WINDOW. 

"Vanity  of  vanities,  saith  tlie  Preacher;  all  is  vanity." — Ecclesiastes 
xii.,  8. 

WHEN  a  book  is  placed  in  your  hands,  the  first  ques- 
tion you  ask  is,  "Who  wrote  it?"'  Not  all  the  po- 
litical astuteness  and  classic  grace  and  unparalleled  satire 
of  "  Junius's  Letters"  can  satisfy  you,  because  you  do  not 
know  who  Junius  was  —  whether  John  Home  Tooke,  or 
Bishop  Butler,  or  Edmund  Burke.  Mightier  than  a  book 
alwa3's  is  the  man  who  wrote  the  book. 

Now,  who  is  the  author  of  this  text?  King  Solomon. 
It  seemed  as  if  the  world  exhausted  itself  on  that  man.  It 
wove  its  brightest  flowers  into  his  garland.  It  set  its  rich- 
est gems  in  his  "coronet.  It  pressed  the  rarest  wine  to  his 
lip.  It  robed  him  in  the  purest  purple  and  embroidery. 
It  cheered  him  with  the  sweetest  music  in  that  land  of 
harps.  It  greeted  him  with  the  gladdest  laughter  that 
ever  leaped  from  mirth's  lip.  It  sprinkled  his  cheek  with 
spray  from  the  brightest  fountains,  Eoyalty  had  no  do- 
minion, wealth  no  luxury,  gold  no  glitter,  flowers  no  sweet- 
ness, song  no  melody,  light  no  radiance,  upholstery  no  gor- 
geousness,  waters  no  gleam,  birds  no  plumage,  prancing 
coursers  no  mettle,  architecture  no  grandeur,  but  it  was 
all  his.  Across  the  thick  c^rass  of  the  lawn,  frnifrant  with 
tufts  of  camphire  fron^  En-gedi,  fell  the  long  shadows  of 
trees  brought  from  distant  forests.  Fish  -  pools,  fed  by 
artificial  channels  that  brought  the  streams  from  hills  far 

14 


Sl-i  VIEW  FUOM  THE  PALACE   ^yIXB(JW. 

away,  were  perpetually  ruffled  with  fins,  and  golden  scales 
shot  from  water-cave  to  water-cave  with  endless  dive  and 
swirl,  attracting  the  gaze  of  foreign  potentates.  Birds  that 
had  been  brought  from  foreign  aviary  glanced  and  flut- 
tered among  the  foliage,  and  called  to  their  mates  far  be- 
yond the  sea.  From  the  royal  stables  there  came  up  the 
neighing  of  twelve  thousand  horses,  standing  in  blankets 
of  Tyrian  purple,  chewing  their  bits  over  troughs  of  gold, 
waiting  for  the  king's  order  to  be  brought  out  in  front  of 
the  palace,  when  the  official  dignitaries  would  leap  into  the 
saddle  for  some  grand  parade,  or,  harnessed  to  some  of  the 
fourteen  hundred  chariots  of  the  king,  the  fiery  chargers, 
with  flaunting  mane  and  throbbing  nostril,  would  make 
the  earth  jar  with  the  tramp  of  hoofs  and  the  thunder  of 
wheels.  While  within  and  without  the  palace  you  could 
not  think  of  a  single  luxury  that  could  be  added  or  of  a 
single  splendor  that  could  be  kindled,  down  on  the  banks 
of  the  sea  the  drj^- docks  of  Ezion-geber  rang  with  the 
hammers  of  the  shipwrights  who  were  constructing  larger 
vessels  for  a  still  wider  commerce;  for  all  lands  and  climes 
•were  to  be  robbed  to  make  up  Solomon's  glory.  No  rest 
till  his  keels  shall  cut  ever}'-  sea,  his  axemen  hew  every 
forest,  his  archers  strike  every  rare  wing,  his  fishermen 
whip  every  stream,  his  merchants  trade  in  every  bazaar, 
his  name  be  honored  by  everjr  tribe ;  and  royaltj^  shall  have 
no  dominion,  wealth  no  luxury,  gold  no  glitter,  song  no 
melody,  light  no  radiance,  waters  no  gleam,  birds  no  plum- 
age, prancing  coursers  no  mettle,  upholstery  no  gorgeous- 
ness,  architecture  no  grandeur,  but  it  was  all  his. 

"Well,"  you  say,  "if  there  is  any  man  happy,  he  ought 
to  be."  But  I  hear  him  coming  out  through  the  palace, 
and  see  his  robes   actually  incrusted  with  jewels,  as  he 


VIEW  FHOJI  THE  PALACE  WINDOW.  31o 

Stands  in  the  front  and  looks  out  upon  tlie  vast  domain. 
What  does  he  say?  King  Solomon,  great  is  your  domin- 
ion, great  is  your  honor,  great  is  your  joy?  No.  While 
standing  there  amidst  all  that  splendor,  the  tears  start,  and 
his  heart  breaks,  and  he  exclaims,  "Vanity  of  vanities;  all 
is  vanity."  What!  Solomon  not  happy  yet?  No,  not 
~^appy. 

I  learn  from  this  subject,  in  the  first  place,  that  official 
position  will  never  give  solace  to  a  man^s  soul.  I  know  there 
have  beerr-vew'^iappy-meii  in  high  positions,  such  as  Wil- 
berforcc,  as  Theodore  Frelinghuysen,  as  Governor  Briggs, 
as  Piince  Albert.  But  the  joy  came  not  from  their  ele- 
vated position ;  it  came  from  the  Lord  God,  whom  they 
had  tried  to  serve.  This  man  Solomon  was  king  thirty- 
five  years.  All  the  pleasure  that  comes  from  palatial  resi- 
dence, from  the  flattery  of  foreign  diplomatcs,  from  univer- 
sal sycophancy,  gathered  around  him.  For  a  long  while 
his  throne  stood  firm  and  the  people  were  lo^^al ;  and  yet 
hear  his  awful  sigh  of  disheartenment  in  the  words  of  my 
text.  IIow  many  people  in  all  nges  have  made  the  same 
experiment  with  the  same  failure !  How  often  you  see 
people  who  think,  "If  I  could  only  get  in  this  or  that  po- 
sition— if  I  could  be  a  mayor,  or  a  governor,  or  a  senator, 
or  a  president,  I  should  be  perfectly  happy !"  And  they 
have  gone  on,  climbing  from  one  position  to  another,  never 
finding  the  solace  they  anticipated. 

Ask  the  men  who  have  gone  through  the  political  life 
of  the  last  forty  years,  in  their  old  days,  what  they  think 
of  the  honors  of  this  world,  and  they  will  tell  you,  "AshesJ 
ashes!"     An  old  man  told  me  sometime  ago  that  he  called    \ 
at  the  White  House  just  before  the  expiration  of  the  second     1 
term  of  President  Jackson.     He  sent  a  message  in  ;   the 


316  VIEW  FROM  THE  PALACE  WINDOW. 

President  came  not.  He  sent  a  second  time,  and  a  third 
time.  After  a  while  the  President  came  out  in  great  in- 
dignation, and  said,  "Gentlemen,  people  envy  me  in  this 
White  House,  and  they  long  to  get  here  ;  but  I  tell  you,  at 
the  end  of  the  second  term,  I  am  glad  to  get  out  of  it,  for 
it  is  a  perfect  hell."  The  honors  and  the  emoluments  of 
this  world  bring  so  many  cares  with  them,  that  they  bring 
also  torture  and  disquietude.  Pharaoh  sits  on  one  of  the 
highest  earthly  eminences,  yet  he  is  miserable  because 
there  are  some  people  in  his  realm  that  do  not  want  any 
longer  to  make  bricks.  The  head  of  Edward  I.  aches  un- 
der his  crown  because  the  people  will  not  pay  the  taxes, 
and  Llewellyn,  Prince  of  Wales,  will  not  do  him  homage, 
and  Wallace  will  be  a  hero.  Frederick  William  IH.  of 
Prussia  is  miserable  because  France  wants  to  take  the 
Pi'ussian  provinces.  The  world  is  not  large  enough  for 
Louis  XIV.  and  William  IIL  The  ghastliest  suffering, 
the  most  shriveling  fear,  the  most  rending  jealousies,  the 
most  gigantic  disquietude,  have  walked  amidst  obsequious 
courtiers,  and  been  clothed  in  royal  apparel,  and  sat  on 
jndgment-seats  of  power. 

Honor  and  truth  and  justice  can  not  go  so  high  up  in 
authority  as  to  be  beyond  the  range  of  human  assault. 
The  pure  and  the  good  in  all  ages  have  been  execrated  by 
the  mob  who  cry  out,  "  Not  this  man,  but  Barabbas.  Now, 
Barabbas  was  a  robber."  By  patriotic  devotion,  by  hon- 
esty, by  Christian  principle,  I  would  have  you,  my  hearers, 
seek  for  the  favor  and  the  confidence  of  your  fellow-men; 
but  do  not  look  upon  some  high  position  in  society  as 
though  that  were  always  sunshine.  The  mountains  of 
earthly  honor  are  like  the  mountains  of  Switzerland,  cov- 
ered with  perpetual  ice  and  snow.     Having  obtained  the 


VIEW  FliOM  THE  PALACE  ^yIXDOW.  317  - 

confidence  and  the  love  of  your  associates,  be  content  with 
such  things  as  you  have.  You  brought  notliing  into  the 
world,  and  it  is  very  certain  you  can  carry  nothing  out. 
"Cease  ye  from  man,  whose  breath  is  in  his  nostrils." 
There  is  an  honor  that  is  worth  possessing,  but  it  is  an 
honor  that  comes  from  God.  This  day  rise  up  and  take  it. 
"Behold  what  manner  of  love  the  Father  hath  bestowed 
upon  us,  that  we  should  be  called  the  sons  of  God."  Who 
aspires  not  for  that  royalty?  Come  now,  and  be  kings 
and  priests  unto  God  and  the  Lamb  forever. 

Still  further,  I  learn  from  my  subject  ih^nijivorldly  wealth 
can  not  satisfy  the^^souJlRjjMging.  The  more  money  a  man 
has,  the  better,  if  he  gets  it  honestly  and  uses  it  lawfully. 
The  whole  teaching  of  the  Word  of  God  has  a  tendency  to 
create  those  kinds  of  habits  and  that  kind  of  mental  acu- 
men which  lead  on  to  riches.  A  man  who  talks  against' 
wealth  as  though  it  were  a  bad  thing  is  either  a  knaveor  v. 
a  fool,  not  meaning  what  he  says,  or  ignorant  of  the  glori-M 
ous  uses  to  which  money  can  be  put.  But  the  man  who 
builds  his  soul's  happiness  on  earthly  accumulation  is  not 
at  all  wise,  to  put  it  in  the  faintest  shape.  To  say  that 
Solomon  was  a  millionaire  gives  but  a  very  imperfect  idea 
of  the  property  he  inherited  from  David,  his  father.  He 
had  at  his  command  gold  to  the  value  of  six  hundred  and 
eighty  million  pounds,  and  he  had  silver  to  the  value  of 
one  billion'fw'enty-nine  million  three  hundred  and  scventj^- 
seven  pounds  sterling.  The  Queen  of  Shcba  made  him 
a  nice  little  present  of  seven  hundred  and  twenty  thou- 
sand pounds,  and  Iliram  made  him  a  present  of  the  same 
amount.  If  he  had  lost  the  value  of  a  whole  realm  out  of 
his  pocket,  it  w^ould  have  hardly  been  worth  his  while  to 
stoop  down  and  pick  it  up ;  and  yet,  with  all  that  affluence, 


318  VIEW  FROM  THE  PALACE   WIXDOV/. 

lie  writes  the  words  of  my  text,  "Vanity  of  vanities;  all  is 
vanity."  Alas !  if  that  man  could  not  find  in  all  his  wcji'ld- 
]y  possessions  enough  to  satisfy  his  immortal  soul,  no 
amount  that  you  and  I  will  ever  gather  by  the  sweat  of 
our  brow,  or  by  the  strength  of  our  aiun,  will  make  us 
happy. 

I  have  been  amused  to  hear  people,  when  they  start  in 
life,  say  at  what  point  in  life  they  will  be  contented  with 
worldly  possessions.  One  man  says,  "I  want  to  get  twen- 
ty thousand  dollars,  and  I  will  be  satisfied."  Another,  "I 
want  to  get  fifty  or  a  hundred  thousand,  or  a  million,  and 
then  I  will  be  satisfied.  Then  I  will  say  to  my  soul,  '  Now, 
just  look  at  that  block  of  store-houses.  Just  look  at  those 
Government  securities.  Just  look  at  those  bonds  and  mort- 
gages. Just  look  what  lucrative  investments  you  have. 
Now,  my  soul,  take  thine  ease ;  eat,  drink,  and  be  merry  !'  " 
Thou  fool!  If  you  are  not  happy  now  with  the  smaller 
possessions,  you  will  never  be  with  the  larger  possessions. 
If  with  decent  and  comely  apparel  you  are  not  grateful  to 
God,  you  would  be  ungrateful  if  you  had  a  prince's  ward- 
robe crowded  till  the  hinges  burst.  If  j^ou  sat  this  morn- 
ing at  your  table,  and  the  fare  was  so  poor  that  you  com- 
plained, you  would  not  be  satisfied  though  you  sat  down 
to  partridge  and  pine-apple.  If  you  are  not  contented 
with  an  income  to  support  comfortably  your  household, 
you  would  not  be  contented  though  your  income  rolled  in 
on  you  fifty  or  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  a  year. 

It  is  not  what  we  get,  it  is  what  we  are^  that  makes  us 
happy  or  miserable.  If  that  is  not  so,  how  do  you  account 
for  the  fact  that  many  of  those  who  fare  sumptuously 
every  day  arc  waspish,  and  dissatisfied,  and  overbearing, 
and  foreboding,  and   crankj-,  and  uncompromising;  with 


VIEW  FliOJI  THE  PALACE  WINDOW.  319 

a  countenance  in  which  wrath  ahva^'s  lowers,  and  a  lip 
which  scorn  curls;  while  many  a  time  in  the  summer 
even-tide  you  see  a  laboring  man  going  home  in  his  shirt- 
sleeves, with  a  pail  on  his  arm  and  a  pick-axe  over  his 
shoulder,  his  face  bright  witli  smiles,  and  his  heart  with 
hope,  and  the  night  of  his  toil  bright  with  flaming  auroras? 
It  is  an  illustration  and  proof  of  the  fact  that  it  is  not  out- 
ward condition  that  makes  a  man  happy. 

Oh,  I  wish  this  morning  I  could,  by  the  power  of  the 
Lord  Almighty,  break  the  infatuation  of  those  men  who 
are  neglecting  the  present  sources  of  satisfaction,  hoping 
that  there  is  to  be  something  in  the  future  for  them  of  a 
worldly  nature  that  will  satisfy  their  souls.  The  heart 
right,  all  is  right.  The  heart  wrong,  all  is  wrong.  But  I 
ask  3-ou  to  higher  riches;  to  crowns  that  never  fade;  to  in- 
vestments that  always  declare  dividends.  Come  up  this 
day  and  get  it — the  riches  of  God's  pardon,  the  riches  of 
God's  mercy,  the  riches  of  God's  peace.  Blessed  are  all 
they  who  put  their  trust  in  him. 

I  go  still  further,  and  learn  from  this  subject  that  learn- 
ing_qnd  science  can  not  satisfy  the  soul.  You  know  that 
Solomon  was  one  of  the^nrgcst  contributors  to  the  litera- 
ture of  his  day.  He  wrote  one  thousand  and  five  songs. 
He  wrota  ikr^thou'simH  ]proTer^.~~'He"  wrote' ^^^^ 
-»K3§t^every  thing!  The  Bibie~"»a^  distinctly  he  wrote 
about  plants,  from  the  cedar  of  Lebanon  to  the  hyssop  that 
groweth  out  of  the  wall,  and  about  birds  and  beasts  and 
fishes.  No  doubt  he  put  off  his  royal  robes,  and  put  on 
hnhtcr''s  trapping,  and  w^nt  out  with  his  arrows  to  bring 
down  the  rarest  specimens  of  birds;  and  then  with  his 
fishing  apparatus  he  went  down  to  the  stream  to  bring  up 
the  denizens  of  the  deep,  and  plunged  into  the  forest  and 


S20  VIEW  FROM  THE  PALACE  WINDOW. 

found  the  rarest  specimens  of  flowers;  and  then  he  came 
back  to  his  study  and  wrote  books  about  zoology,  the  sci- 
ence of  animals;  about  ichthyology,  the  science  of  fishes; 
about  ornithology,  the  science  of  birds;  about  botany,  the 
science  of  plants.  Yet,  notwithstanding  all  his  achieve- 
ments, he  cries  out  in  my  text,  "Vanity  of  vanities;  all  is 
vanity." 

Have  you  ever  seen  a  man  try  to  make  learning  and 
science  his  God?  Did  you  ever  know  such  a  fearful  auto- 
biography as  that  of  John  Stuart  Mill,  a  man  who  prided 
himself  on  his  philosophj'-,  and  had  a  wonderful  strength 
of  intellect;  yet  now,  after  his  death,  his  autobiography 
goes  forth  to  the  world,  showing  that  his  whole  life  was  a 
gigantic  wretchedness.  We  have  seen  men  go  out  with 
mineralogist's  hammer,  and  geologist's  pry,  and  botanist's 
knife,  and  ornithologist's  gun,  and  storm  the  kingdom  of 
nature  in  her  barred  castles  of  cave  and  grove  and  forest; 
and  if  there  is  any  heaven  on  earth,  it  is  that.  With  your 
eyes  prepared  for  all  beautiful  sights,  and  your  ears  for  all 
sweet  sounds,  and  3^our  soul  for  all  great  thoughts,  if  you 
go  forth  in  the  place  where  God  breathes  in  the  aroma  of 
flowers,  and  talks  in  the  wind's  rustling,  and  sings  in  the 
roar  of  forest  and  mountain  cataract,  then  you  know  why 
Linnaeus  spent  his  life  amidst  plants,  and  Cuvier  found  in- 
telligent converse  among  beasts,  and  Werner  grew  exhil- 
arant  among  minerals,  and  Audubon  reveled  among  birds, 
and  Agassiz  found  untraveled  worlds  of  thought  in  a  fish. 
But  every  man  who  has  testified,  after  trying  the  learning 
and  science  of  the  world  for  a  solace,  testified  that  it  is 
an  insufficient  portion.  The  philosopher  has  often  wept  in 
astronomer's  observatory  and  chemist's  laboratory  and  bot- 
anist's herbarium.     There  are  times  when  the  soul  dives 


VIEW  FROM  THE  PALACE  WINDOW.  321 

deeper  than  the  fish,  and  soars  higher  than  the  bird,  and, 
though  it  may  be  enraptured  with  the  beauties  of  the  nat- 
ural world,  it  will  long  after  trees  of  life  that  never  wither, 
and  fountains  that  never  dry  up,  and  stars  that  shall  shine 
after  the  glories  of  our  earthly  nights  have  gone  out  for- 
ever. 

Oh,  what  discontents,  what  jealousies,  what  uncontrolla- 
ble hate  have  sprung  up  among  those  who  depended  upon 
their  literary  success!  How  often  have  writers,  with  their 
pens  plunged  into  the  hearts  of  their  rivals — pens  sharp- 
er than  cimeters,  striking  deeper  than  bayonets!  Voltaire 
hated  Rousseau.  Charles  Lamb  could  not  endure  Cole- 
ridge. Waller  warred  against  Go'^ley.  The  hatred  of 
Plato  and  Xenophon  is  as  immortal  as  their  works.  Cor-U 
neille  had  an  utter  contempt  for  Racine.  Have  you  ever! 
been  in  Westminster  Abbey?  In  the  "Poet's  Corner,"  in 
Westminster  Abbey,  sleep  Drayton  the  poet;  and  a  little 
way  off,  Goldie,  who  said  the  former  was  not  a  poet. 
There  slee^rDrydcn ;  and  a  little  way  off,  poor  Shadwell, 
who  pursued  him  with  fiend's  fury.  There  is  Pope;  and  a 
little  way  off  is  John  Dennis,  his  implacable  enemy.  They 
never  before  came  so  near  together  without  quarreling! 
Byron  had  all  that  genius  could  give  a  man,  and  that  sym- 
pathy with  nature  could  give  a  man,  and  that  literary  ap- 
plause could  give  a  man,  and  yet  died  in  wretchedness. 

I  come  to  learn  one  more  lesson  from  my  subject,  and 
that  is  that  there  is  no  comfort  in  the  life  of  a  voh(j)tuarij.  I 
dare  not  draw  aside  the  curtain  tliat  hides  the  excesses 
into  which  Solomon's  dissoluteness  plunged  him.  Though 
he  waved  a  sceptre  over  others,  there  arose  in  his  own 
sonl  a  tyrant  that  mastered  him.  With  a  mandate  that 
none  dared  disobey,  he  laid  the  whole  land  under  tribute 

14* 


822  VIEW  FROM  THE  PALACE  WINDOW. 

to  his  iniquity.  Delilah  sheared  the  locks  of  that  Samson. 
From  that  princely  seraglio  there  went  forth  a  ruinous 
blight  on  the  whole  nation's  chastity;  but  after  a  while 
remorse,  with  feet  of  fire,  leaped  upon  his  soul,  and  with 
body  exhausted  and  loathsome  and  dropping  apart  with 
putrefjxction,  he  staggers  out  from  the  hell  of  his  own  in- 
iquity to  give  warning  to  others.  Oh,  how  many  have 
ventured  out  on  that  wild  sea  of  sensuality,  driven  by  fierce 
winds  of  passion,  hurled  against  rocks,  swallowed  in  the 
whirl  of  hell's  maelstrom  !  That  was  the  last  of  them.  No ! 
that  was  not  the  last  of  them.  Everlastingly  ruined,  with 
their  passions  unsubdued,  and  burning  on  the  soul  more 
fiercely  than  unquenchable  fire,  they  shall  writhe  in  a  tor- 
ture that  shall  make  the  cheek  of  darkness  pale,  and  utter  a 
blasphemy  that  shall  shock  devils  damned.  Oh,  how  many 
young  men  have  gone  on  that  path  of  sin  because  it  seemed 
blooming  with  tropical  splendor,  and  the  sky  was  bright, 
and  the  air  was  balm,  and  from  the  castles  that  stood  on 
the  shore  of  glittering  seas  there  came  ringing  up  laughter 
as  merry  as  the  waves  that  dashed  on  the  crags  beneath ! 
By  some  infernal  spell  their  eye  was  blinded  and  their  ear 
was  stopped,  or  they  would  have  heard  the  clank  of  chains 
and  the  howl  of  woe,  and  across  their  vision  would  have 
passed  spectres  of  the  dead,  with  shrouds  gathered  up 
about  faces  blistered  with  pain,  and  eyes  starting  from 
their  sockets  in  agony.  But,  alas!  they  saw  it  not,  they 
heard  it  not,  until  from  the  slippery  places  the  long,  lean, 
skeleton  hands  of  despair  reached  up  and  snatched  them 
down,  destroyed  without  remedy  !  Has  this  sorcerer  cast 
its  eye  on  you?  O  young  man!  have  you  been  once  and 
again  to  the  places  where  the  pure  never  go?  Have  you 
turned  your  back  upon  a  mother's  prayer  and  a  sister's 


VIEW  FBOM  THE  PALACE  WIXBOW.  823 

love?  and,  while  I  speak,  does  your  conscience  begin  to 
toll  dismally  the  burial  of  your  purity  and  honor? 

Put  back  now  or  never.  Put  back!  That  shadow  that 
falls  upon  your  soul  is  from  no  passing  cloud,  but  from  a 
night  deep,  starless,  eternal.  God's  eye  watcheth  thy  foot- 
steps. A  little  farther  on,  and  no  tears  can  wash  out  thy 
sin,  and  no  prayer  will  bring  a  pardon.  Put  back  now  or 
never!  I  tear  off  the  garlands  which  hide  this  death's 
head,  and  hold  before  you  to-day  the  reeking  skull  of  sin- 
ful pleasure.  Nations  have  gone  down  under  this  sin. 
Exhumed  cities  on  broken  pillars  and  on  temple  walls  have 
preserved  in  infamous  sculpture  the  memory  of  scenes 
before  which  the  antiquarian  turns  his  head,  and  asks  if 
there  be  a  God  where  so  long  has  slept  his  vengeance. 
The  world  still  trembles  under  the  weight  of  this  behemoth 
of  iniquity,  and,  from  the  mj^riad  graves  in  which  it  holds 
the  scarred  carcasses  of  the  slain,  lifts  up  its  hands,  crying, 
"How  long,  O  Lord,  how  long?"  From  Christian  circles, 
from  the  very  altars  of  God,  the  ranks  of  ruin  are  made  up. 
They  march  on  with  scorched  feet  over  a  pathwa}'^  of  fire, 
the  ground  trembling  with  earthquake,  and  the  air  hot 
with  the  breath  of  woe,  and  sulphurous  with  the  fleet  light- 
nings of  God's  wrath.  Scorpions  strike  out  at  every  step, 
and  the  "worm  that  never  dies"  lifts  its  awful  crest,  with 
horrid  folds  to  crush  the  debauched.  Oh,  there  is  no  peace 
in  the  life  of  a  voluptuiiry!  Solomon  answers,  "None! 
none !" 

But,  my  friends,  if  there  is  no  complete  satisfaction  in 
worldly  office,  in  worldly  wealth,  in  worldly  learning,  in 
sinful  indulgence — where  is  there  any  ?  Has  God  turned 
us  out  on  a  desert  to  die?  Ah  no;  look  at  this  One  that 
comes  this  morning — this  fair  one.     Immortal  garlands  on 


S2-i  VIEW  FllOM  THE  PALACE  WIXJJOW. 

her  brow.  The  song  of  heaven  bursting  from  her  lips ! 
"  Her  ways  are  ways  of  pleasantness,  and  all  her  paths  are 
peace."  In  Christ  is  peace.  In  Christ  is  pardon.  In 
Christ  is  everlasting  joy,  and  nowhere  else. 

"Substantial  comfort  will  not  grow 
In  nature's  barren  soil ; 
All  we  can  boast,  till  Cbrist  we  know, 
Is  vanity  and  toil. 

"But  where  the  Lord  has  planted  grace, 
And  made  his  glories  known. 
There  fruits  of  heavenly  joy  and  peace 
Are  found,  and  there  alone." 


PAUL'S  VALEDICTORY.  325 


i 


PAUL'S  VALEDICTORY. 

"The  time  ot'niy  departure  is  at  hand." — 2  Timothy  iv.,  6, 

'T'^HE  way  out  of  this  world  is  so  blocked  up  with  coffin 
->■-  and  hearse,  and  undertaker's  spade  and  screw-driver, 
that  the  Christian  can  hardly  think  as  he  ought  of  the  most 
cheerful  passage  in  all  his  history.  We  hang  black  instead 
of  white  over  the  place  where  the  good  man  gets  his  last 
victor3^  We  stand  weeping  over  a  heap  of  chains  which 
the  freed  soul  has  shaken  off,  and  we  sa}^,  "  Poor  man  ! 
What  a  pity  it  was  he  had  to  come  to  this!"  Come  to 
what?  By  the  time  the  people  have  assembled  at  the  ob- 
sequies, that  man  has  been  three  days  so  happy  that  all  the 
joy  of  earth  accumulated  would  be  wretchedness  beside  it, 
and  he  might  better  weep  over  you  because  you  have  to 
stay,  than  you  weep  over  him  because  he  has  to  go.  It  is 
a  fortunate  thing  that  a  good  man  does  not  have  to  wait  to 
see  his  own  obsequies,  they  would  be  so  discordant  with 
his  own  experience.  If  the  Israelites  should  go  back  to 
Egypt  and  mourn  over  the  brick-kilns  they  once  left,  they 
would  not  be  any  more  silly  than  that  Christian  who  should 
forsake  heaven  and  come  down  and  mourn  because  he  had 
to  leave  this  world.  Our  ideas  of  the  Christian's  death  are 
morbid  and  sickly.  We  look  upon  it  as  a  dark  hole  in 
which  a  man  stumbles  when  his  breath  gives  out.  This 
whole  subject  is  odorous  with  varnish  and  disinfectants,  in- 
stead of  being  sweet  with  mignonnette.  Paul,  in  my  text, 
takes  that  great  clod  of  a  word   "  death,"  and  throws  it 


32(3  PAUL'S    VALEDICTOEY. 

away,  and  speaks  of  his  "departure" — a  beautiful,  bright, 
suggestive  word,  descriptive  of  every  Christian's  release. 

Now,  departure  implies  a  starting-place  and  a  place  of 
destination.  When  Paul  left  this  world,  what  was  the 
starting-point?  It  was  a  scene  of  great  physical  distress. 
It  was  the  Tullianum,  the  lower  dungeon  of  the  Mamertine 
prison.  The  top  dungeon  was  bad  enough,  it  having  no 
means  of  ingress  or  egress  but  through  an  opening  in  the 
top.  Through  that  the  prisoner  was  lowered,  and  through 
that  came  all  the  food  and  air  and  light  received.  It  was 
a  terrible  place,  that  upper  dungeon ;  but  the  Tullianum 
was  the  lower  dungeon,  and  that  was  still  more  wretched, 
the  only  light  and  the  only  air  coming  through  the  roof, 
and  that  roof  the  floor  of  the  upper  dungeon.  That  was 
Paul's  last  earthly  residence.  It  was  a  dungeon  just  six 
feet  and  a  half  high.  It  was  a  doleful  place.  It  had  the 
chill  of  long  centuries  of  dampness.  It  was  filthy  with  the 
long  incarcerations  of  miserable  wretches.  It  was  there 
that  Paul  spent  his  last  days  on  earth,  and  it  is  there  that 
I  see  him  to-day,  in  the  fearful  dungeon,  shivering,  blue 
with  the  cold,  waiting  for  that  old  overcoat  which  he  had 
sent  for  up  to  Troas,  and  which  they  had  not  yet  sent 
down,  notwithstanding  he  had  written  for  it. 

If  some  skillful  surgeon  should  go  into  that  dungeon 
where  Paul  is  incarcerated,  we  might  find  out  what  are 
the  prospects  of  Paul's  living  through  the  rough  imprison- 
ment. In  the  first  place,  he  is  an  old  man,  only  two  years 
short  of  seventy.  At  that  very  time  when  he  most  needs 
the  warmth  and  the  sunlight  and  the  fresh  air,  he  is  shut 
out  from  the  sun.  What  are  those  scars  on  his  ankles? 
Wh}'-,  those  were  gotten  when  he  was  fast,  his  feet  in  the 
stocks.      Every  time  he  turned,  the  flesh  on  his  ankles 


PAUL'S   VALEDlVTOIiY.  327 

started.  What  are  those  scars  on  his  back  ?  You  know 
he  was  whipped  five  times,  each  time  getting  thirty-nine 
strokes — one  hundred  and  ninety-five  bruises  on  the  back 
(count  them !)  made  by  the  Jews  with  rods  of  elm-wood, 
each  one  of  the  one  hundred  and  ninety-five  strokes  bring- 
ing the  blood.  Look  at  Paul's  face  and  look  at  his  arms. 
Where  did  he  get  those  bruises?  I  think  it  was  when  he 
was  struggling  ashore  amidst  the  shivered  timbers  of  the 
shipwreck.  I  see  a  gash  in  Paul's  side.  Where  did  he 
get  that?  I  think  he  got  that  in  the  tussle  with  highway- 
men, for  he  bad  been  in  peril  of  robbers,  and  he  had  mon- 
ey of  his  own.  He  was  a  mechanic  as  well  as  an  apostle, 
and  I  think  the  tents  he  made  were  as  good  as  his  sermons. 
There  is  a  wanness  about  Paul's  looks.  What  makes 
that?  I  think  a  part  of  that  came  from  the  fact  that  he 
was  for  twenty-four  hours  on  a  })lank  in  the  Mediterranean 
Sea,  suffering  terribly,  before  he  was  rescued;  for  he  says 
positively,  "I  was  a  night  and  a  day  in  the  deep."  Oh, 
worn-out,  emaciated  old  man !  surely  you  must  be  melan- 
choly :  no  constitution  could  endure  this  and  be  cheerful. 
But  I  press  my  way  through  the  prison  until  I  come  up 
close  to  where  he  is,  and  by  the  faint  light  that  streams 
through  the  opening  I  see  on  his  face  a  supernatural  joy, 
and  I  bow  before  him,  and  I  say,  "Aged  man,  how  can 
you  keep  cheerful  amidst  all  this  gloom?"  His  voice  star- 
tles the  darkness  of  the  place  as  he  cries  out,  "I  am  now 
ready  to  be  offered,  and  the  time  of  my  departure  is  at 
hand.''  Hark!  what  is  that  shuffling  of  feet  in  the  upper 
dungeon  ?  Why,  Paul  has  an  invitation  to  a  banquet,  and 
he  is  going  to  dine  to-day  with  the  king.  Those  shuffling 
feet  are  the  feet  of  the  executioners.  They  come,  and  they 
cry  down  through  the  hole  of  the  dungeon,  "Hurry  up. 


328  PAUL'S   VALEDICTORY. 

old  man.  Come  now ;  get  yourself  readj^"  Why,  Paul 
•was  ready.  He  had  nothing  to  pack  up.  He  had  no  bag- 
gage to  take.  He  had  been  ready  a  good  while.  I  see 
him  rising  up,  and  straightening  out  his  stiifened  limbs, 
and  pushing  back  his  white  hair  from  his  creviced  fore- 
head, and  see  him  looking  up  through  the  hole  in  the  roof 
of  the  dungeon  into  the  face  of  his  executioner,  and  hear 
him  say,  "I  am  now  ready  to  be  offered,  and  the  time  of 
my  departure  is  at  hand."  Then  they  lift  him  out  of  the 
dungeon,  and  they  start  with  him  to  the  place  of  execu- 
tion. They  say,  "Hurry  along,  old  man,  or  you  will  feel 
the  weight  of  our  spear.  Hurry  along."  "How  far  is  it," 
says  Paul,  "we  have  to  travel?"  "Three  miles."  Three 
miles  is  a  good  way  for  an  old  man  to  travel  after  he  has 
been  whipped  and  crippled  with  maltreatment.  But  they 
soon  get  to  the  place  of  execution — Acquce  Salvia — and 
he  is  fastened  to  the  pillar  of  martyrdom.  It  does  not 
take  any  strength  to  tie  him  fast.  He  makes  no  resist- 
ance. O  Paul!  why  not  now  strike  for  3'our  life?  You 
have  a  great  many  friends  here.  With  that  withered 
hand  just  launch  the  thunder-bolt  of  the  people  upon  those 
infamous  soldiers.  No!  Paul  was  not  going  to  intei"fere 
with  his  own  coronation.  He  was  too  glad  to  go.  I  see 
him  looking  up  in  the  face  of  his  executioner,  and,  as  the 
grim  official  draws  the  sword,  Paul  calmly  saj's,  "I  am 
now  ready  to  be  offered,  and  the  time  of  my  departure  is 
at  hand."  But  I  put  my  hand  over  my  eyes.  I  want  not 
to  see  that  last  struggle.  One  sharp,  keen  stroke,  and 
Paul  does  go  to  the  banquet,  and  Paul  does  dine  with  the 
King. 

What  a  transition  it  was!     From  the  malaria  of  Eome  to 
the  finest  climate  in  all  the  universe — the  zone  of  eternal 


PAUL'S   VALEDICTORY.  329 

becauty  and  health.  His  ashes  were  put  in  the  catacombs 
of  Rome,  but  in  one  moment  the  air  of  heaven  bathed  from 
his  soul  the  last  ache.  From  shipwreck,  from  dungeon, 
from  the  biting  pain  of  the  elm-wood  rods,  from  the  sharp 
sword  of  the  headsman,  he  goes  into  the  most  brilliant  as- 
semblage of  heaven,  a  king  among  kings,  multitudes  of  the 
sainthood  rushing  out  and  stretching  forth  hands  of  wel- 
come;  for  I  do  really  think  that  as  on  the  right  hand  of 
God  is  Christ,  so  on  the  right  hand  of  Christ  is  Paul,  the 
second  great  in  heaven. 

He  changed  kings  likewise.  Before  the  hour  of  death, 
and  up  to  the  last  moment,  he  was  under  Nero,  the  thick- 
necked,  the  cruel-eyed,  the  filthy-lipped ;  the  sculptured  feat- 
ures of  that  man  bringing  down  to  us  to  this  very  day  the 
horrible  possibilities  of  his  nature — seated  as  he  was  amidst 
pictured  marbles  of  Egypt,  under  a  roof  adorned  with 
mother-of-pearl,  in  a  dining-room  which  by  machinery  w^as 
kept  whirling  day  and  night  with  most  bewitching  magnif- 
icence ;  his  horses  standing  in  stalls  of  solid  gold,  and  the 
grounds  around  his  palace  lighted  at  night  by  its  victims, 
who  had  been  bedaubed  with  tar  and  pitch  and  then  set  on 
fire  to  illumine  the  darkness.  That  was  Paul's  king.  But 
the  next  moment  he  goes  into  the  realm  of  Him  whose 
reign  is  love,  and  whose  courts  are  paved  with  love,  and 
whose  throne  is  set  on  pillars  of  love,  and  whose  sceptre  is 
adorned  with  jewels  of  love,  and  whose  palace  is  lighted 
with  love,  and  whose  lifetime  is  an  eternity  of  love.  "When 
Paul  was  leaving  so  much  on  this  side  the  pillar  of  mar- 
tyrdom to  gain  so  much  on  the  other  side,  do  you  wonder 
at  the  cheerful  valedictory  of  the  text,  "The  time  of  my 
departure  is  at  hand  ?" 

Now,  why  can  not  all  the  old  people  of  my  congregation 


830  PAUL'S   VALEBIUTORY. 

have  the  same  lioly  glee  as  that  aged  man  had  ?  Charles  I.; 
when  he  was  combing  his  head,  found  a  gray  hair,  and  he 
sent  it  to  the  queen  as  a  great  joke ;  but  old  age  is  really  no 
joke  at  all.  For  the  last  forty  years  you  have  been  dread- 
ing that  which  ought  to  have  been  an  exhilaration.  You 
say  you  most  fear  the  struggle  at  the  moment  the  soul  and 
body  part.  But  millions  have  endured  that  moment,  and 
why  may  not  we  as  well?  They  got  through  with  it,  and 
so  can  we.  Besides  this,  all  medical  men  agree  in  saying 
that  there  is  probably  no  struggle  at  all  at  the  last  moment 
— not  so  much  pain  as  the  prick  of  a  pin,  the  seeming  signs 
of  distress  being  altogether  involuntary.  But  you  say,  "  It 
is  the  uncertainty  of  the  future,"  Now,  child  of  God,  do 
not  play  the  infidel.  After  God  has  filled  the  Bible  till  it 
can  hold  no  more  with  stories  of  the  good  things  ahead, 
better  not  talk  about  uncertainties. 

But  you  say,  "I  can  not  bear  to  think  of  parting  from 
friends  here."  If  you  are  old,  you  have  more  friends  in 
heaven  than  here.  Just  take  the  census.  Take  some 
large  sheet  of  paper  and  begin  to  record  the  names  of 
those  who  have  emigrated  to  the  other  shore;  the  com- 
panions of  your  school-days,  your  early  business  associates, 
the  friends  of  mid-life,  and  those  who  more  recently  went 
away.  Can  it  be  that  ihey  have  been  gone  so  long  you 
do  not  care  any  more  about  them,  and  you  do  not  want 
their  society  ?  Oh  no.  There  have  been  days  when  you 
have  felt  that  you  could  not  endure  it  another  moment 
away  from  their  blessed  companionship.  They  have  gone. 
You  say  you  would  not  like  to  bring  them  back  to  this 
world  of  trouble,  even  if  you  had  the  power.  It  would 
not  do  to  trust  you.  God  would  not  give  you  resurrection 
power.     Before  to-morrow  morning  you  would  be  rattling 


PAUL'S   VALEDICTORY.  331 

at  the  gates  of  the  cemetery,  crying  to  the  departed,  "  Come 
back  to  the  cradle  where  you  slept!  come  back  to  the  hall 
where  you  used  to  play !  come  back  to  the  table  where 
you  used  to  sit!"  and  there  would  be  a  great  burglary 
in  heaven.  No,  no.  God  will  not  trust  you  with  resur- 
rection power;  but  he  compromises  the  matter,  and  says, 
"  You  can  not  bring  them  where  you  are,  but  j^ou  can  go 
where  they  are."  They  are  more  lovely  now  than  ever. 
Were  they  beautiful  here,  they  are  more  beautiful  there. 

Besides  that,  it  is  more  healthy  there  for  you  than  here, 
aged  man ;  better  climate  there  than  these  hot  summers 
and  cold  winters  and  late  springs;  better  hearing;  better 
eye-sight;  more  tonic  in  the  air;  more  perfume  in  the 
bloom  ;  more  sweetness  in  the  song.  Do  you  not  feel,  aged 
man,  sometimes  as  though  you  would  like  to  get  your  arm 
and  foot  free?  Do  you  not  feel  as  though  you  would  like 
to  throw  away  spectacles  and  canes  and  crutches?  Would 
you  not  like  to  feel  the  spring  and  elasticitj^  and  mirth  of 
an  eternal  boyhood?  When  the  point  at  which  you  start 
from  this  world  is  old  age,  and  the  point  to  which  you  go 
is  eternal  juvenescence,  aged  man,  clap  your  hands  at  the 
anticipation,  and  say,  in  perfect  rapture  of  soul,  "  The  time 
of  my  departure  is  at  hand." 

I  remark,  again,  all  those  ought  to  feel  this  joy  of  the 
text  who  have  a  holy  curiosity  to  Jcnoiu  ivhat  is  beyond  this 
earthly  terminus.  And  who  has  not  any  curiosity  about  it? 
Paul,  I  suppose,  had  the  most  satisfactory^  view  of  heaven, 
and  he  says,  "It  doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be." 
It  is  like  looking  through  a  broken  telescope:  "Now  we 
see  through  a  glass  darkly."  Can  you  tell  me  any  thing 
about  that  heavenly  place  ?  You  ask  me  a  thousand  ques- 
tions about  it  that  I  can  not  answer.     I  ask  you  a  thousand 


332  PAUL'S  VALEDICTORY. 

questions  about  it  that  you  can  not  answer.  And  do  you 
wonder  that  Paul  was  so  glad  when  martyrdom  gave  liira 
a  chance  to  go  over  and  make  discoveries  in  that  blessed 
country? 

I  hope  some  day,  by  the  grace  of  God,  to  go  over  and 
see  for  myself;  but  not  now.  No  well  man,  no  prospered 
man,  I  think,  wants  to  go  now.  Bat  the  time  will  come, 
I  think,  when  I  shall  go  over.  I  want  to  see  what  they  do 
there,  and  I  want  to  see  how  they  do  it.  I  do  not  want  to 
be  looking  through  the  gates  ajar  forever.  I  want  them 
to  swing  wide  open.  There  are  ten  thousand  things  I 
want  explained — about  you,  about  m3^self,  about  the  gov- 
ernment of  this  world,  about  God,  about  every  thing.  We 
start  in  a  plain  path  of  what  we  know,  and  in  a  minute 
come  up  against  a  high  wall  of  what  we  do  not  know.  I 
wonder  how  it  looks  over  there.  Somebody  tells  me  it 
is  like  a  paved  city — paved  with  gold ;  and  another  man 
tells  me  it  is  like  a  fountain,  and  it  is  like  a  tree,  and  it  is 
like  a  triumphal  procession ;  and  the  next  man  I  meet 
tells  me  it  is  all  figurative.  I  really  want  to  know,  after 
the  body  is  resurrected,  what  they  wear  and  what  they  eat; 
and  I  have  an  immeasurable  curiosity  to  know  what  it  is, 
and  how  it  is,  and  where  it  is.  Columbus  risked  his  life 
to  find  this  continent,  and  shall  we  shudder  to  go  out  on  a 
voyage  of  discovery  which  shall  reveal  a  vaster  and  more 
brilliant  country?  John  Franklin  risked  his  life  to  find  a 
passage  between  icebergs,  and  shall  we  dread  to  find  a  pas- 
sage to  eternal  summer?  Men  in  Switzerland  travel  up 
the  heights  of  the  Matterhorn  with  alpenstock,  and  guides, 
and  rockets,  and  ropes,  and,  getting  half-way  up,  stumble  and 
fall  down  in  a  horrible  massacre.  They  just  wanted  to  say 
they  had  been  on  the  tops  of  those  high  peaks.     And  shall 


PAUL'S  VALEDICTORY.  333 

we  fear  to  go  out  for  the  ascent  of  the  eternal  hills  which 
start  a  thousand  miles  beyond  where  stop  the  highest  peaks 
of  the  Alps,  and  when  in  that  ascent  there  is  no  peril  ?  A 
man  doomed  to  die  stepped  on  the  scaffold,  and  said  in 
joy,  "  Now,  in  ten  minutes  I  will  know  the  great  secret." 
One  minute  after  the  vital  functions  ceased,  the  little  child 
that  died  last  nio-ht  in  Monta2:ue  Street  knew  more  than 
Jonathan  Edwards,  or  St.  Paul  himself,  before  he  died. 
Friends,  the  exit  from  this  world,  or  death,  if  you  please  to 
call  it,  to  the  Christian  is  glorious  explanation.  It  is  dem- 
onstration. It  is  illumination.  It  is  sunburst.  It  is  the 
opening  of  all  the  windows.  It  is  shutting  up  the  cate- 
chism of  doubt,  and  the  unrolling  of  all  the  scrolls  of  posi- 
tive and  accurate  information.  Instead  of  standing  at  the 
foot  of  the  ladder  and  looking  up,  it  is  standing  at  the  top 
of  the  ladder  and  looking  down.  It  is  the  last  mystery 
taken  out  of  botany,  and  geology,  and  astronomy,  and  the- 
olog3^  Oh,  will  it  not  be  grand  to  have  all  questions  an- 
swered? The  perpetually  recurring  interrogation -point 
changed  for  the  mark  of  exclamation.  All  riddles  solved. 
AVho  will  fear  to  go  out  on  that  discovery,  when  all  the 
questions  are  to  be  decided  which  we  have  been  discussing 
all  our  lives?  Who  shall  not  clap  his  hands  in  the  antici- 
]iation  of  that  blessed  country,  if  it  be  no  better  than 
through  holy  curiosity?  crying,  "The  time  of  my  depart- 
ure is  at  hand." 

I  remark,  again,  we  ought  to  have  the  joy  of  the  text, 
because,  leaving  this  world,  we  move  into  the  best  society  of  the 
nniverse.  You  see  a  great  crowd  of  people  in  some  street, 
and  you  say,  "Who  is  jiassing  there?  What  general, 
what  prince  is  going  up  there?"  Well,  I  see  a  great 
throng  in  heaven.     I  say,  "Who  is  the  focus  of  all  that 


334  PAUL'S  VALEDICTORY. 

admiration?  Who  is  the  centre  of  that  glittering  com- 
pany?" It  is  Jesus,  the  champion  of  all  worlds,  the  favor- 
ite of  all  ages.  Do  you  know  what  is  the  first  question 
the  soul  will  ask  when  it  comes  through  the  gate  of  heav- 
en ?  I  think  the  first  question  will  be,  "  Where  is  Jesus, 
the  Saviour  that  pardoned  my  sin ;  that  carried  my  sor- 
rows; that  fought  my  battles  ;  that  won  my  victories?"  O 
radiant  one!  how  I  would  like  to  see  thee!  thou  of  the 
manger,  but  without  its  humiliations ;  thou  of  the  cross, 
but  without  its  pangs ;  thou  of  the  grave,  but  without  its 
darkness. 

The  Bible  intimates  that  we  will  talk  with  Jesus  in 
heaven  just  as  a  brother  talks  with  a  brother.  Now,  what 
will  you  ask  him  first?  I  do  not  know.  I  can  think 
what  I  would  ask  Paul  first  if  I  saw  him  in  lieaven.  I 
think  I  would  like  to  hear  him  describe  the  storm  that 
came  upon  the  ship  when  there  were  two  hundred  and 
seventy-five  souls  on  the  vessel,  Paul  being  the  only  man 
on  board  cool  enough  to  describe  the  storm.  There  is  a 
fascination  about  a  ship  and  the  sea  that  I  never  shall  get 
over,  and  I  think  I  would  like  to  hear  him  talk  about  that 
first.  But  when  I  meet  my  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  of  what 
shall  I  first  delight  to  hear  him  speak?  Now  I  think 
what  it  is.  I  shall  first  want  to  hear  the  tragedy  of  his  last 
hours ;  and  then  Luke's  account  of  the  crucifixion,  and 
Mark's  account  of  the  crucifixion,  and  John's  account  of 
the  crucifixion  will  be  nothing,  while  from  the  living  lips 
of  Christ  the  story  shall  be  told  of  the  gloom  that  fell, 
and  the  devils  that  arose,  and  the  fact  that  upon  his  en- 
durance depended  the  rescue  of  a  race ;  and  there  w%as 
darkness  in  the  sky,  and  there  was  darkness  in  the  soul, 
and  the  pain  became  more  sharp,  and  the  burdens  became 


PAUL' a   VALEDlCTOltY.  335 

more  heavy,  until  the  mob  began  to  swim  away  from  the 
dying  vision  of  Christ,  and  the  cursing  of  the  mob  came  to 
his  ear  more  faintly,  and  his  hands  were  fastened  to  the 
horizontal  piece  of  the  cross,  and  his  feet  were  fastened  to 
the  perpendicular  piece  of  the  cross,  and  his  head  fell  for- 
ward in  a  swoon  as  he  uttered  the  last  moan  and  cried,  "It 
is  finished!"  All  heaven  will  stop  to  listen  until  the  story 
is  done,  and  every  harp  will  be  put  down,  and  every  lip 
closed,  and  all  eyes  fixed  upon  the  divine  narrator,  until 
the  story  is  done ;  and  then,  at  the  tap  of  the  baton,  the 
eternal  orchestra  will  rouse  up ;  finger  on  string  of  harp, 
and  lips  to  the  mouth  of  trumpet,  there  shall  roll  forth  the 
oratorio  of  the  Messiah,  "Worthy  is  the  Lamb  that  was 
slain  to  receive  blessing,  and  riches,  and  honor,  and  glory, 
and  power,  world  without  end!" 

"Wliat  He  endured,  oh,  who  can  tell. 
To  save  our  souls  from  death  and  hell !" 

When  there  was  between  Paul  and  that  magnificent 
personage  only  the  thinness  of  the  sharp  edge  of  the  swoi-d 
of  the  executioner,  do  you  wonder  that  he  wanted  to  go? 
O,  my  Lord  Jesus,  let  one  wave  of  that  glory  roll  over 
this  auditory  to-night!  Ilark !  I  hear  the  wedding-bells 
of  heaven  ringing  now.  The  marriage  of  the  Lamb  has 
come,  and  the  bride  hath  made  herself  ready.  I  wish  I 
could  take  that  word  "death"  and  grind  it  to  pieces,  and 
substitute  in  its  place  "departure"  —  "departure."  The 
word  is  just  as  appropriate  for  the  sinner  as  it  is  for  the 
Christian.  0  sinner!  when  you  do  go,  for  what  will  you 
depart?  It  can  not  be  up  the  way  Paul  went,  unless  you 
have  Paul's  Saviour,  How  long  will  3'our  journey  be? 
At  what  house  will  you  stop?     In  what  society  will  you 


336  PAUL'S   VALEDICTORY. 

mingle?  What  will  be  your  destiny?  Listen!  Listen! 
Again  I  bear  tbe  bells  ringing ;  but  it  is  a  fire-bell  tolling 
for  tbe  conflagration  tbat  never  goes  out.  I  bear  tbe 
drums  beating;  but  it  is  tbe  funeral  marcb  of  a  soul. 
"And  tbere  sball  be  weeping  and  wailing  and  gnasbing  of 
teetb." 

A  man  on  tbe  street  was  fatally  injured,  and  was  carried 
into  tbe  nearest  bouse.  He  says,  "  I  bave  often  beard  of 
people  wbo  died  unprepared,  but  I  never  tbougbt  I  would 
be  one  of  tbem.  What  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ?"  But  be- 
fore tbe  answer  came  life  was  extinct.  Deatb  was  depart- 
ure for  him ;  but,  ob !  for  wbat  place? 


HONEY  FROM  A  HTMAJSUE  IIIVK  337 


HONEY  FROM  A  SIKANGE  HIYE. 

"And,  behold,  tliere  was  a  swavm  of  bees  and  honej'  in  the  carcass  of  the 
lion." — Judges  xiv.,  8. 

A  GIANT,  unarmed,  is  on  bis  way  to  Timnatb.  Turn- 
ing aside  from  tbe  road  and  sauntering  in  tbc  jungles, 
suddenly  a  lion,  witb  terrific  roar,  springs  upon  him.  Seiz- 
ing the  uprearing  monster  by  the  jaws,  with  iron  grip  he 
twists  and  wrenches  them  apart,  leaving  tbe  lion  dead  by 
the  roadside.  What  the  ordinary  hunter  does  with  trap, 
and  trained  elephants,  and  armed  band,  and  fire-arms  skill- 
fully aimed  at  the  prey,  this  giant  did  with  his  two  hands. 
About  a  year  after,  going  along  by  that  place,  he  very 
naturally  turned  aside  to  see  the  carcass  of  the  lion  he  had 
slain.  A  strange  sight!  There  were  the  bones,  and  honey 
in  the  hollow  of  the  skeleton.  What  a  strange  hive  in 
which  to  gather  honey !  You  might  think  it  peculiar  that 
bees,  which  are  the  most  cleanly  of  all  insects,  should  select 
such  a  place  as  that.  Not  strange  at  all.  In  that  hot  cli- 
mate, and  where  there  are  so  man\'  other  insects,  in  a  few 
days  all  marks  of  death  and  pollution  have  gone  from  tbe 
carcass,  and  the  skeleton  is  as  pure  and  clean  as  the  boxes 
in  which  bees  in  our  day  gather  the  wealth  of  gardens  and 
meadows  and  orchards.  It  was  a  whole  year  after  when 
the  giant  came  along,  and  out  of  the  bleached  skeleton  got 
that  honey  for  himself  and  for  his  comrades. 

Well,  my  friends,  a  lion  has  met  j-ou  in  the  way — a  lion 
fiercer  than  that  which,  putting  its  mouth  to  the  ground, 

15 


338  HONEY  FROM  A  STItANQE  mVE. 

makes  the  Namidian  jungle  quake  with  its  bellowing. 
Some  monster  bereavement  has  come  upon  you,  and  with 
merciless  paw  struck  down  your  loved  one,  dragging  him. 
off  into  the  dai'k  jungles  of  death.  All  unarmed,  you  felt 
unable  to  cope  with  the  grizzly,  gaping,  all-devouring  mon- 
ster ;  but  after  you  had  prayed  a  while  you  rose  in  the 
strength  of  God,  and  destroyed  that  monster  trouble.  You 
snapped  it  in  twain.  You  trampled  it  under  your  foot. 
You  left  it  by  the  roadside.  And,  coming  along  that  way 
to-day,  you  see  that  all  the  promises  of  God  have  swarmed 
there,  and  the  bleached  skeleton  of  the  slain  monster  is  fill- 
ed with  honey  from  all  the  gardens  of  heaven.  The  jaws 
of  the  monster  that  gaped  upon  you  have  become  the  hive 
of  sweetest  Christian  consolation.  To  bring  a  platter  of 
that  honey  to  all  bereaved  souls  who  may  be  in  this  house 
to-day  is  my  work,  first  bringing  it  in  general,  and  then 
to  one  specific  trouble,  the  service  this  morning  being  in 
memoriam. 

I  think  there  is  no  sweeter  or  more  potent  consolation 
than  the  fact  that  we  are  to  be  re-associated  in  the  future 
world  with  our  Christian  friends.  I  shall  bring  no  passages 
to  prove  such  a  fact.  That  I  have  done  in  other  sermons. 
I  shall  take  it  all  for  granted,  supposing  you  believe  it, 
only  trying  to  show  you  what. are  the  uses  of  such  a  warm- 
hearted. Christian  theory.  I  would  to  God,  while  we  are 
thinking  about  it,  the  church  on  earth  might  seem  to  re- 
spond to  the  church  in  heaven  !  During  the  last  war  I 
was  down  for  a  little  while  in  the  army,  and  I  noticed  in 
the  night-time  that  one  division  of  the  army  would  signal 
to  the  other  division,  and  there  w^ere  times  in  the  night 
when  the  sky  seemed  written  all  over  with  lettei's  and 
words  of  fire,  one  division  signaling  to  another  division. 


HONEY  FJiO.V  A  STRANGE  UIVE.  339 

And  so  I  would  have  it  now,  tlic  church  on  earth  signaling 
its  joy  to  heaven,  and  heaven  signaling  back  its  joy  to 
earth  ;  for  we  are  different  divisions  of  one  great  host: 

"One  army  of  tlic  living  God, 
To  his  command  we  bow ; 
Part  of  the  host  have  crossed  the  flood, 
And  part  are  crossing  now." 

This  idea  of  future  association  with  our  departed  friends 
is  honey  out  of  the  slain  lion.  In  the  first  place,  this  con- 
sideration exalts  and  gives  stahility  to  Christian  friendship. 
If  our  association  is  only  a  matter  of  five  or  ten  or  thirty 
years,  it  is  not  worth  much.  Can  it  be  that  our  attachment 
to  each  other  has  such  short  arms  that  it  can  not  reach 
across  the  grave?  We  go  into  a  rail -train,  and  we  sit 
down  for  a  few  hours  beside  a  stranger,  and  talk  with  him. 
Then  he  leaves  at  one  station,  and  we  leave  at  another, 
lie  never  thinks  of  us  again  ;  we  never  think  of  him  again. 
Is  that  a  type  of  our  Christian  attachments?  Oh  no.  We 
are,  in  heaven,  to  rise  up  amidst  infinite  congratulations  to 
renew  our  association.  The  only  difference  between  our 
acquaintanceship  here  and  our  acquaintanceship  there  will 
be  that  there  we  shall  know  each  other  better  and  love 
each  other  more.  Death  will  not  strike  any  thing  out  of 
our  association  but  its  imperfections.  Wading  down  into 
the  river  of  death,  it  will  onlj'  bathe  off  our  impurities. 
If  you  now  count  me  to  be  your  friend,  when  I  shall  have 
quit  all  my  sins  and  follies  and  imperfections,  and  my  en- 
tire nature  is  uplifted  before  the  throne  of  God,  you  will 
have  for  me  a  millionfold  o-j-eater  attachment.  If  mv 
friendship  to  3'ou  is  merely  because  you  invite  me  to  grand 
entertainments,  or  because   you  allow  me  to   have  your 


S4:0  HONEY  FROM  A  STRANGE  HIVE. 

name  on  tine  back  of  my  notes,  such  a  mercenary  and  half- 
hearted attachment  as  that  can  not  stride  across  the  grave. 
Bat  this  communing  of  heart  with  heart,  this  mingling  of 
pj^mpathy  with  sympathy,  this  feeling  which  leads  us  to 
carry  each  other's  burdens,  and  weep  each  other's  sorrows, 
and  laugh  in  each  other's  joy — all  these  are  prophecies  of 
eternal  intimacy.  You  and  I  may  soon  part;  we  may 
pitch  our  tents  in  different  zones,  our  graves  may  be  cleft 
in  opposite  sides  of  the  earth ;  but  the  scenes  in  which  we 
now  mingle  will  be  renewed  under  milder  skies.  And  so 
I  strike  hands  with  you  to-day  in  a  friendship  which  shall 
bloom  immortal  after  the  mountains  have  crumbled,  and 
the  stars  that  flower  in  celestial  gardens  shall  have  wilted 
in  the  hot  breath  of  a  judgment-day. 

Again,  this  idea  of  future  association  ought  to  assuage 
our  bereavements.  There  is  not  a  family  in  this  house  to- 
day that  has  not  heard  the  tramp  of  the  pall -bearers. 
There  is  hardly  a  house  on  all  these  streets  that  has  not 
had  its  craped  door-bell.  I  look  into  your  upturned  faces 
to-day,  and  see  the  marks  of  many  griefs.  They  have 
wrinkled  yonr  brow.  They  have  dropped  a  shadow  un- 
der your  eye.  They  have  taken  the  color  out  of  your 
cheek.  Tliere  have  been  awful  agonies  of  separation  that 
have  gone  crashing  down  through  the  heart-strings.  This 
world  is  not  so  bright  as  it  used  to  be  before  such  and  such 
a  light  was  put  out.  You  walk  with  listless  step  along 
places  where  once  you  danced  with  delight.  The  spring 
grass  of  this  April  day  would  have  been  above  your  grave 
but  for  the  consolation  of  the  thought  that  3^ou  would  be 
reunited  with  the  departed  in  the  better  world.  The  dy- 
ing one  spake  of  that  heavenly  greeting,  and  for  that  hour 
you  are  waiting  —  waiting  while  the  home  is  desolate; 


HOXEY  FltOM  A  STRANGE  HIVE.  84  i 

waiting  while  the  years  go  tediously  by;  waiting  while 
the  heart  continues  to  break — and  you  shall  not  be  dis- 
appointed. Your  lives  shall  join  again.  Hand  to  hand. 
Heart  to  heart.  Jubilee  to  jubilee.  Throne  to  throne. 
Hallelujah  to  hallelujah. 

The  most  frequent  trial  that  comes  across  the  families  of 
the  earth  is  the  loss  of  children.  The  vast  majority  of  the 
race  may  not  reach  manhood  and  womanhood.  Infantile 
diseases  are  the  gauntlet  they  can  not  run.  It  seems  as  if 
this  world  were  too  chill  and  cold  and  drear  for  the  flow- 
ers of  childhood,  so  the  heavenly  gardener  takes  them  in. 
You  look  down  as  you  think  of  the  little  one  that  God 
took  out  of  your  cradle.  At  the  moment  when  he  was 
the  most  promising — at  that  moment  the  blast  came.  Oh  ! 
that  was  a  grief — the  closing  of  the  lids  over  the  blue  eyes 
that  shall  never  sparkle  again  at  your  coming.  That  was 
a  heart-rending  —  the  putting  of  the  burial  flowers  that 
some  playmate  had  brought  into  the  hand  that  used  to 
pluck  its  own  wild  flowers  from  the  field,  and  gather  them 
in  bunches  and  wear  them  in  her  flaxen  hair.  And  some- 
times 3'ou  sit  down  and  look  at  the  floor  by  the  hour,  until 
within  the  small  pattern  of  the  carpet  at  which  you  stare 
there  come  bounding  in  with  mirth  and  gladness  the  feet 
that  have  long  been  still ;  and  you  wake  up  in  the  mid- 
night as  though  you  had  heard  the  call  of  a  loved  one,  as 
though  it  were  a  cry  of  distress,  "  Mother!  mother!"  But 
you  fall  back,  for  it  is  all  a  dream.  I  wish  I  could  to- 
day hang  one  picture  in  your  nursery,  hang  it  over  the 
place  where  your  little  ones  used  to  pla}'- ;  hang  it  right 
between  the  windows  up  against  which  they  used  to  press 
tlieir  sunny  faces  —  a  picture  of  the  heavenly  greeting. 
You  know  how  it  was  after  you  had  been  absent  a  long 


312  HONEY  FliOM  A  STRANGE  HIVE. 

while,  and,  coming  home,  they  saw  you  before  you  got  up 
to  the  front  of  the  house,  and  they  shouted,  "  They  have 
come!  they  have  come!"  and  they  held  to  your  dress,  and 
told  you  a  hundred  things  at  once,  and  almost  blocked  up 
your  entrance  to  the  house  with  their  gladness.  So,  me- 
thinks,  it  will  be  when  you  at  last  enter  heaven's  gate ;  the 
shout  will  be,  "  She's  come !  She's  come !"  And  they 
will  put  garlands  on  your  brow  and  palms  in  your  hands, 
and  clap  and  sing,  waking  up  heaven  to  brighter  gladness 
with  their  sweet  voices  and  their  bounding  feet  and  their 
jubilant  hosannas. 

"How  shall  we  know  them,  the  infant  race? 
How  will  the  mother  her  loved  one  trace? 
By  the  thrill  which,  when  first  he  smiled, 
Came  o'er  her  soul,  will  she  know  her  child  ! " 

Oh  glorious  anticipation,  that  with  all  our  Christian  dead, 
whether  young  or  old,  we  shall  meet  again!  Be  patient, 
therefore.  No  trouble,  no  comfort.  No  cross,  no  crown. 
No  battle,  no  victory.  No  slain  lion  of  assault,  no  hived 
honey  of  Christian  consolation. 

Again,  this  consideration  gives  great  peace  to  the  dying. 
The  step  out  of  this  world  into  the  next  is  a  very  myste- 
rious step ;  and  though  we  are  promised  brilliant  escort, 
some  very  good  people  shudder  about  dying.  But  how 
different  that  passage  seems  in  one's  history  if  he  realizes 
that  he  is  going  from  a  home  circle  here  to  a  home  circle 
there;  that  one  moment  after  he  has  said  "Good-night" 
to  friends  on  earth  he  says  "Good-morning"  to  friends  in 
heaven.  Oh,  this  irradiates  the  pallid  cheek  of  the  dying. 
This  rekindles  the  lustre  of  the  closing  eye.  This  lifts  the 
hand  as  though  to  join  in  the  heavenly  hand-shaking.  It 
is  the  thought  that  he  is  surrounded  by  friends  now  and 


HONEY  FROM  A  STRANGE  HIVE.  843 

will  be  surrounded  by  friends  there.  It  is  the  thought 
that  he  is  only  going  from  one  room  to  another  in  "the 
house  of  many  mansions."  Just  as  when  you  get  into  a 
boat,  and  some  one  on  the  shore  steadies  you  while  you 
get  in,  and  some  one  in  the  boat  helps  you,  so  it  will  be 
when  you  come  to  die :  there  will  be  friends  here  to  help 
you  oJ9f,  and  friends  there  to  help  you  in.  You  know  very 
well  that  if  you  are  to  cross  a  swift  stream,  you  need  to 
take  sight  by  some  bluff  or  tree  or  fixed  object;  and  so, 
when  we  come  down  to  cross  the  swift  currents  of  death, 
we  had  just  better  put  our  eye  upon  the  highlands  crowned 
with  the  castles  of  our  own  loved  ones,  and  then  pull  and 
pull  for  the  beach. 

"Steer  this  way,  brother, 
Steer  straight  for  me ; 
Here,  safe  in  heaven, 
I  am  waiting  for  thee." 

Under  this  anticipation,  Death,  no  more  a  lion,  bears  to  us 
chalices  of  honey. 

I  bring  the  consolation  of  this  subject  especially  to  the 
friends  of  Gasherie  De  Witt,  on  this  and  the  other  side  of 
the  Atlantic.  I  parted  with  him  three  years  ago  at  Vic- 
toria Station,  England.  Many  of  you  parted  with  him  at 
the  Cunard  wharf  in  Jersey  City.  Others  of  you  parted 
with  him  at  the  door  of  the  village  church  in  Belleville. 

O 

Others  of  you  parted  witli  him  in  the  last  moment  at  the 
foot  of  Mont  Blanc.  But  we  shall  meet  again.  lie  was  a 
man  worth  meeting.  Eighteen  years  ago  he  first  dawned 
upon  me  in  the  parsonage  at  Belleville,  where  he  had  come 
to  welcome  me  to  my  new  home.  Since  then  I  have  been 
with  him  in  a  great  variety  of  circumstances,  and,  begin- 
ning by  thinking  well  of  him,  I  have  loved  him  more  and 


3-14  HONEY  FROM  A  STRANGE  HIVE. 

more  as  the  years  rolled  by.  lie  M-as  born  to  be  a  leader, 
and  by  comraon  consent  men  fell  into  line.  He  was  aglow 
with  enthusiasm,  and  flamed  when  advocating  the  right  or 
denouncing  the  wrong.  He  did  not  take  things  b}^  slow  be- 
siegement,  but  by  storm.  While  others  planned,  he  both 
planned  and  executed.  With  his  own  hand  he  made  his 
fortune ;  but  though  the  money  came  rapidlj^,  the  more 
rapidly  did  his  heart  enlarge.  He  had  done  the  work  of 
an  octogenarian  at  mid-life.  He  was  one  of  the  few  men 
who  can  do  many  things  well.  Whether  advocating  the 
building  of  a  railroad,  or  inventing  a  new  machine,  or 
hunting  in  a  Southern  forest,  or  speaking  in  a  legislative 
hall,  or  advocating  a  temperance  reform,  or  wielding  a 
painter's  pencil,  or  arousing  a  church  meeting,  he  was  an  ex- 
pert, a  marksman,  a  connoisseur,  an  agitator,  a  commander. 
He  was  always  right,  and  never  afraid ;  well-balanced,  yet 
quick;  conservative  where  things  ought  to  be  preserved, 
radical  where  they  ought  to  be  destroyed.  He  was  impa- 
tient of  time-serving  people  ;  explosive  with  red-faced  in- 
dignation at  any  thing  like  meanness;  tearfully  tender  with 
suffering;  a  bubbling  well  of  sympathy;  a  many -keyed 
soul,  on  which  you  might  play  anthem  or  dirge,  battle  march 
or  lullaby.  But  I  think  the  master-passion  of  his  soul  was 
Christian  generosity.  He  gave  to  his  elder  son  counsel 
that  I  have  never  heard  of  being  given  in  a  dying  hour,  and 
that  was,  "Be  generous."  He  went  everywhere,  search- 
ing for  sick  ministers  and  feeble  churches  and  struggling 
young  men.  It  was  his  life  to  help  somebody.  At  the 
dedication  of  our  first  Tabernacle  he  arose  six  times  in  the 
audience  to  make  contribution,  his  tongue  thick  with  that 
paralysis  w^hich  helped  after  a  while  to  end  his  life.  I 
went  to  him,  and  laid  before  him  the  policy  of  a  Lay  Col- 


UONEY  FROM  A  STRANGE  HIVE.  3-i5 

lege,  the  object  of  which  should  be  the  education  of  lay- 
men for  practical  Christian  work  in  all  denominations.  He 
slapped  his  hand  on  his  knee,  and  said,  "TLiat's  just  what 
we  want.  I  have  been  waiting  for  something  of  that  kind 
for  twenty  years.  The  ministers  can  not  do  this  work  all 
alone.  You  must  get  the  troops  mnssed,  and  the  private 
Christians  of  all  denominations  drilled  for  work.  Go 
ahead,  Talmage,  and  I'll  back  you."  And  he  did  back  me 
with  his  money,  and  with  his  prayers,  and  with  his  counsel, 
from  his  dying  pillow  sending  me  stirring  word  of  encour- 
ao-ement.  The  tide  of  influence  throuoh  that  institution 
set  in  motion  will  roll  on  forever.  Many  souls  have  already 
been  brought  to  God  through  the  instrumentality  of  the 
men  who  have  been  trained  there.  That  institution  would 
not  have  been  formed  but  for  the  financial  encouragement 
of  Mr.  De  Witt.  A  colony  of  Chinese  came  near  his  resi- 
dence, and  at  his  own  expense  he  opened  a  school  to  edu- 
cate them  for  God  and  heaven ;  and  in  the  long  procession 
that  followed  him  on  the  funeral  day  there  was  nothing 
more  impressive  than  the  saddened  faces  of  those  Chinese 
as  they  marched  on  after  the  dead  body  of  their  benefactor. 
That  man  turned  his  back  on  his  elegant  mansion,  and 
went  out  for  the  most  dismal  work  that  a  man  ever  does — 
the  hunting-up  of  his  lost  health.  He  sought  for  it  in  En- 
gland, in  Germany,  in  Italy,  in  Switzerland,  staying  long 
enough  in  the  Christian  chapels  of  foreign  countries  to  help 
them  with  his  money  and  with  his  prayers;  staying  long 
enough  in  the  picture-galleries  of  Dresden  to  copy  with  his 
own  hands  some  of  the  works  of  the  great  masters,  aston- 
ishing the  native  artists  with  his  skill;  then  coming  to 
Geneva,  Switzerland,  to  lie  down  and  die  in  awful  physic- 
al excruciation.     It  seemed  as  if  God  said  to  him,  "Your 

15* 


346  HONEY  FROM  A  STRANGE  HIVE. 

searcli  for  health  amidst  the  mountains  of  this  world  is  a 
foilure.  Now,  come  up  higher;  breathe  a  better  air.  In 
the  deep  fountains  of  the  rock  bathe  off  all  your  physical 
tortures.  There  is  no  sorrow  that  heaven  can  not  cure." 
Some  of  his  last  utterances  have  been  preserved.  You 
would  like  to  hear  them.  They  are  more  jubilant  than 
sad  ;  some  of  them  exquisitely  poetic,  others  have  the  call 
of  a  clarion  :  "  '  This  is  evidently  the  end.  My  Saviour  is 
coming  for  me.  God  will  bless  you,  and  raise  you  up  pro- 
tectors.' There  had  been  for  three  days  one  of  the  high 
mountain  winds  which  we  had  feared  would  annoy  him, 
but  dared  not  allude  to  it,  for  fear  of  drawing  his  attention 
to  it.  He  did  not  seem  to  notice  it,  Sunday  morning 
broke  clear,  beautiful,  and  still,  with  a  light  full  of  snow 
covering  the  whole  landscapa  He  kissed  me,  and  said,  'I 
have  no  pain  this  morning,  and  my  whole  soul  is  in  perfect 
peace.  Thank  God  for  this  blessed  peace.  He  giveth  his 
beloved  sleep.  Oh,  my  dear  wife!  it  is  only  the  parting 
that  I  dread.  We  have  been  together  so  many  years,  so 
many  happy  years ;  but  my  Saviour  is  close  to  me  now, 
my  blessed,  precious  Saviour.'  And  he  put  out  his  arms  as 
though  he  would  clasp  him,  while  his  whole  face  lighted 
up  with  love.  'I  welcome  thee,  I  embrace  thee.  He  will 
keep  you,  give  you  friends,  keep  our  children  always.  Tell 
my  dear  mother  I  would  have  come  to  her  if  I  could,  but 
God  ordered  it  otherwise.  It  will  be  only  a  short  time  be- 
fore we  shall  meet  again,  and  I  will  watch  over  her  till  then, 
if  I  can.  Praise  God  for  his  mercy  in  raising  up  to  rne 
friends  on  both  sides  the  ocean  from  among  his  children. 
This  is  the  happiest  day  of  my  life.  Notwithstanding  the 
anguish  of  body,  there  is  perfect  happiness  within.  The 
storms  among  the  mountains  are  all  over.     There  is  perfect 


HONEY  FROM  A  STRANGE  HIVE.  347 

quiet.  So  it  is  with  my  life.  Not  tliat  I  have  liaJ  partic- 
ular storms,  but  the  storms  of  my  life  are  over  now,  and 
there  is  only  perfect  peace.'  He  lay  still  for  a  few  minutes, 
and  commenced  again,  'There  is  a  new, pure  covering  over 
^[ont  Blanc.  Down  over  all  the  mountains  and  valleys,  it 
covers  every  thing — all.  That  is  an  emblem  of  the  new, 
pure  covering  over  my  life — the  covering  Jesus  has  given 
me.  God  grant  it  may  cover  every  thing — all.'  lie  wanted 
the  girls  to  sing  '  Rock  of  Ages,'  and  '  Just  as  I  am.'  They 
did  so,  and  at  the  end  of  every  verse  he  seemed  to  pour 
his  whole  soul  out  in  uttering  the  words,  '  0  Lamb  of  God  ! 
I  come.' 

"He  was  just  expressing  his  regret,  Monday  morning, 
that  he  had  done  so  little  for  Jesus,  when  a  letter  came 
from  the  Lay  College,  telling  him  of  its  prosperity,  and 
containing  a  resolution  offered  by  the  professors  and  stu- 
dents at  a  special  meeting,  expressing  their  gratitude  for 
his  sympathy  and  co-operation.  This  letter  was  very  com- 
forting, recalling  to  his  mind  that  he  had  done  some  very 
effieient  work  for  the  Master,  after  all.  Wednesday  even- 
ing, at  eight  or  nine  o'clock,  he  dropped  out  of  his  suffer- 
ing into  a  quiet  slumber,  which  ended  with  three  long- 
drawn  breaths  at  half-past  twelve." 

So  Gasherie  De  Witt  was  emancipated.  So  he  woke 
up.  So  he  began  to  live.  So  he  ascended.  He  came 
along  where  Death  was,  and  "  behold,  there  was  a  swarm 
of  bees  and  honey  in  the  carcass  of  the  lion."  If  I  had  tea 
thousand  tears,  I  would  not  weep  one  of  them  for  our  de- 
parted friend.  He  might  better  weep  over  our  bondage 
than  we  over  bis  liberation.  I  save  my  tears  for  myself 
and  for  the  friends  whom  he  has  left  behind.  Alas  for  the 
home,  beautiful  but  devastated!    The  pictures  are  there  and 


348  HONEY  FI102I  A  STRANGE  HIVE. 

the  books  are  there  and  all  tlio  familiar  surroundings  are 
tbere ;  but  lie  who  made  tbe  pictures,  and  he  who  bought 
the  books,  and  he  who  planned  the  house,  and  he  who  laid 
out  the  grounds  comes  not  up  the  hill,  nor  is  his  quick, 
strong  footstep  heard  in  the  door-way.  May  the  Lord  Al- 
mighty comfort  you  to-day.  He  who  helped  your  husband 
and  your  father  to  die  will  help  you  in  this  sore  bereave- 
ment. O  widowed  soul !  O  orphaned  children  !  0  mourn- 
ing kindred!  in  God  is  thy  refuge,  and  beneath  thee  are 
the  everlasting  arms. 

I  see  in  the  audience  a  goodly  number  of  his  village 
neighbors  and  business  associates.  They  have  come  in 
this  morning  from  Belleville.  You  must  have  started 
early  to  join  in  this  service.  You  are  my  acquaintances 
as  well.  Some  of  you  the  first  parishioners  I  ever  had. 
How  do  you  do  to-day,  my  old  Belleville  friends?  Your 
presence  rolls  in  upon  me  the  memories  of  the  past.  I 
baptized  in  infancy  some  of  those  maidens,  I  united  some 
of  you  in  holy  marriage.  I  buried  some  of  your  dead.  I 
welcomed  some  of  you  into  the  kingdom  of  Christ.  Good 
old  days  we  used  to  have  together,  did  we  not?  And 
now,  after  so  long  a  separation,  we  meet  to-day  to  bend 
over  the  same  sorrow,  and  to  learn  the  lessons  of  the  same 
providence.  You  knew  and  loved  Gasherie  De  "VVitt. 
You  will  never  hear  his  voice  again  in  the  village  councils, 
nor  will  you  greet  him  again  to  your  firesides.  But  you 
know  that  if  there  is  any  such  place  as  heaven,  he  is 
there;  if  there  is  any  such  being  as  God,  Gasherie  De  Witt 
is  with  him.  Oh,  my  friends!  aspire  after  the  same  high 
residence.  When  you  quit  your  abode  on  the  banks  of 
the  beautiful  Passaic,  may  you  go  up  to  walk  on  the  mar- 
gin of  the  river  of  life  with  your  old  friends  and  compan- 


HONEY  FEOM  A   STllAXGE  HIVE.  349 

ions,  and  luive  explained  to  your  everlasting  satisfaction 
why  Gasherie  De  Witt  was  put  to  so  much  pain  ;  and  M'hy 
ho  must  die  so  far  away  from  Lome ;  and  why  be  must  go 
away  from  Lis  family  and  tLe  CLurcL  and  tLe  world  at  a 
time  when  tLey  could  so  poorly  afford  to  spare  Lim. 

To  all  this  tLrong  to-day  tLere  comes  a  lesson.  Among 
the  last  words  of  tLis  man  were  tLese  :  "  TLere  is  no  Lope 
to  live  by  or  die  by  but  tLe  CLristian  Lope."  Do  you  be- 
lieve it?  If  so,  to-day  seek  jowv  eternal  salvation.  If 
you  sLould  tLis  moment  be  Lurled  out  of  life,  would  you 
be  ready?  Not  all  ^ead3^  In  proportion  to  tLe  briglit- 
ncss  of  a  CLristian's  deatL-bed  is  tLe  darkness  of  a  sinner's 
deatL-bed.  lie  sings  no  song.  He  sees  no  ligLt.  He 
leaves  beLind  Lim  no  consolation.  DeatL  to  Lim  is  a  wild 
catastropLe.  lie  goes  from  tLe  world  stumbling  out  of 
it,  feeling  Lis  way  into  tLe  blackness  of  darkness  forever, 

0  dying  soul!  try  sometLing  better.     Standing  to-day,  as 

1  do,  in  tbe  brilliant  Lalo  that  surrounds  a  Christian's 
death-bed,  tLe  cry  of  desolated  Learts  overpowered  by  tLe 
cLanting  of  angelic  coLorts  come  to  fetcL  a  good  man 
Lome,  I  commend  to  you  GasLerie  Do  Witt's  Redeemer. 
May  God  tLis  moment  oversLadow  you  witL  Lis  saving 
presence!  May  tLe  Holy  Ghost  this  moment  overwhelm 
you  with  his  striving  ! 

So  shall  the  swarms  of  trouble  that  come  to  buzz  and 
sting  and  poison  your  soul  leave  for  you  the  saccharine  of 
immortal  flowers.  For  while  the  honey  of  this  world's 
consolation  often  nauseates  and  sickens,  like  that  of  Trebi- 
zond,  because  the  bees  make  it  out  of  the  rhododendron, 
the  honey  of  Christ's  Gospel  gives  life  and  health,  like  that 
which  drips  from  the  delicious  combs  of  Mount  Ida  and 
Chamouni. 


550  THE  KNELL   OF  NINEVEH. 


THE  KNELL  OF  NINEVEH. 

"Yet  forty  days,  and  Nineveh  shall  be  overthrown." — Jonah  iii.,  4. 

ON  tlie  banks  of  the  Tigris  there  is  a  great  capital,  sixty 
miles  in  circumference,  surrounded  bj  a  wall  broad 
enough  to  allow  three  chariots  to  go  abreast;  fifteen  hun- 
dred turrets,  each  two  hundred  feet  high,  carrying  aloft  the 
grandeur  of  the  city.  There  are  six  hundred  thousand  in- 
habitants. The  metropolis  is  not  like  our  crowded  cities ; 
but  gardens  wreathe  the  homes  of  private  citizens  with 
tropical  blaze  of  color,  wet  with  the  spray  of  falling  waters, 
and  there  are  pasture-fields,  on  which  cattle  browse,  in  the 
very  midst  of  the  city.  It  is  a  delicious  climate,  even  in 
midsummer  never  rising  to  more  than  seventy  degrees. 
Through  the  gates  of  that  city  roll  the  commerce  of  East- 
ern and  Western  Asia.  On  its  throne  sits  Sardanapalus, 
his  eNQYy  meal  a  banquet,  his  every  day  a  coronation. 
There  are  polished  walls  of  jasper  and  chalcedony,  bewil- 
dering with  arrow-head  inscriptions,  and  scenes  of  exciting 
chase  and  victorious  battle.  There  are  mansions  adorned 
with  bronze,  and  vases  and  carved  statues  of  ivory,  and 
ceilings  with  mother-of-pearl,  and  mantel  enameling,  and 
floors  with  slabs  of  alabaster.  There  are  other  walls  with 
sculptured  flowers  and  paneling  of  Lebanon  cedar  and 
burnished  copper,  and  door-ways  guarded  by  winged  lions. 
The  city  roars  with  chariot  wheels  and  clatters  with  swift 
hoofs,  and  is  all  arush  and  ablaze  with  pomp  and  fashion 
and  power.     The  river  Tigris  bounds  the  city  on  one  side, 


THE  KNELL   OF  XINEVEH.  351 

and  inoat  and  turreted  wall  bound  it  on  the  other  sides, 
and  there  it  stands  defiant  of  earth  and  heaven.  Fraud  in 
her  store-houses.  Uncleanness  in  her  dwellings.  Obscene 
display  in  her  theatres.  Iniquity  everywhere.  Nineveh 
the  magnificent.     Nineveh  the  vile.     Nineveh  the  doomed. 

One  day,  a  plain-looking  man  comes  through  the  gate 
into  that  city.  He  is  sun-burned  as  though  he  had  been 
under  the  browning  process  of  a  sea-voyage.  Indeed,  he 
had  been  wrecked,  and  picked  up  by  such  a  life-boat  as  no 
other  man  ever  rode  in,  a  whale's  fins  and  flukes  being  to 
him  both  oars  and  rudder.  The  man  had  been  trying  to 
escape  his  duty  of  preaching  a  disagreeable  sermon;  but 
now,  at  last,  his  feet  strike  the  street  of  that  city.  No 
sooner  has  he  passed  under  tiie  shadow  of  the  wall  and  en- 
tered it,  than,  clearing  his  throat  for  loud  and  distinct  ut- 
terance, he  begins;  and  the  water-carrier  sets  down  his 
jug,  and  the  charioteer  reins  in  the  steeds,  and  the  soldiers 
on  the  top  of  the  wall  break  ranks  to  look  and  listen,  while 
his  voice  shivers  through  the  avenues,  and  reverberates 
amidst  the  dwellings  of  potentate  and  peasant,  as  he  cries 
out,  "Yet  forty  days,  and  Nineveh  shall  be  overthrown!" 
The  people  rush  out  of  the  market-places  and  to  the  gates 
to  listen  to  the  strange  sound.  The  king  invites  the  man 
to  tell  the  story  amidst  the  corridoi'S  of  the  palace.  The 
courtiers  throng  in  and  out  amidst  the  statues  and  pictures 
and  fountains,  listening  to  the  startling  message,  "Yet  forty 
days,  and  Nineveh  shall  be  overthrown." 

"What  is  that  fellow  about?"  say  some  of  the  people. 
"Is  he  a  madman  escaped  from  his  keepers?  He  must 
be  an  alarmist,  who  is  announcing  his  morbid  fears.  Ho 
ought  to  be  arrested,  and  put  in  the  prison  of  the  city." 
But  still  the  man  moves  on,  and  still  the  cry  goes  up, 


352  THE  KNELL  OF  NINEVEH. 

"Yet  forty  days,  and  Nineveh  shall  be  overthrown." 
There  is  no  madness  in  his  eye,  there  is  no  fanaticism  in 
his  manner,  but  only  a  Divine  authority,  and  a  terrible 
earnestness  •which  finally  seizes  the  whole  city.  People 
rush  from  place  to  place,  and  say,  "  Have  you  seen  that 
prophet?  What  does  he  mean?  Is  it  to  be  earthquake, 
or  storm,  or  plague,  or  besiegement  of  foreign  enemy  ?" 
Sardanapalus  puts  off  his  jeweled  array  and  puts  on 
mourning,  and  the  whole  city  goes  down  on  its  knees,  and 
street  cries  to  street,  and  temple  to  temple,  and  the  fifteen 
hundred  turrets  join  the  dirge,  "Yet  forty  days,  and  Nine- 
veh shall  be  overthrown."  A  black  covering  is  thrown 
over  the  horses  and  the  sheep  and  the  cattle.  Forage  and 
water  are  kept  from  the  dumb  brutes,  so  that  their  dis- 
tressed bellowing  may  make  a  dolorous  accompaniment  to 
the  lamentation  of  six  hundred  thousand  souls  who  wring 
their  hands,  and  beat  their  temples,  and  throw  themselves 
into  the  dust,  and  deplore  their  sin,  crying  out,  "Yet  forty 
days,  and  Nineveh  shall  be  overthrown." 

God  heard  that  cry.  He  turned  aside  from  the  affiiirs 
of  eternal  state,  and  listened.  He  said,  "Stop!  I  must  go 
down  and  save  that  city.  It  is  repenting,  and  cries  for 
help,  and  it  shall  have  it,  and  Nineveh  shall  live."  Then 
the  people  took  down  the  timbrels,  and  loosened  the  foot 
of  the  dance,  and  flung  new  light  on  the  panels  of  ala- 
baster, and  started  the  suppressed  fountains,  and  the  chil- 
dren clapped  their  hands;  and  from  Sardanapalus  on  the 
throne,  clear  down  to  the  keeper  of  the  city  gate,  where 
brown-faced  Jonah  first  went  in  with  his  thrilling  message, 
there  were  song,  and  laughter,  and  congratulation,  and  fes- 
tivity, and  jubilee.  "And  God  saw  their  works,  that  they 
turned  from  their  evil  way;  and  God  repented  of  the  evil 


THE  KNELL   OF  XIX EVER.  35g 

that  be  bad  said  tbat  be  would  do  unto  tbem :  and  be  did 
it  not." 

I  learn,  in  the  first  place,  from  tbis  subject  the  precision 
and  imnctuality  of  the  Divine  arrangement.  You  will  see  tbat 
God  decided  exactly  tbe  day  wben  Nineveb's  lease  of  mercy 
sbould  end.  If  Jonab  preached  that  sermon  on  tbe  first 
day  of  the  month,  then  tbe  doom  was  to  fall  upon  Nineveh 
on  tbe  tenth  day  of  tbe  next  month.  So  God  decides  what 
shall  be  tbe  amount  of  our  rebellion.  Though  there  may 
be  no  sound  in  tbe  heavens,  he  has  determined  tbe  length 
of  bis  endurance  of  our  sin.  It  may  be  forty  days,  it  may 
be  forty  hours,  it  may  be  forty  minutes,  it  may  be  forty 
seconds.  The  fict  that  the  affairs  of  God's  government  are 
infinite  and  multifarious  is  no  reason  why  he  sbould  not 
attend  to  tbe  minutire.  God  no  more  certainly  decided 
that  on  June  15tb,  1215,  England  sbould  have  her  Magna 
Charta;  nor  tbat  on  tbe  4tb  of  July,  1776,  tbe  Declaration 
of  Independence  should  go  forth;  nor  tbat  at  half- past 
eleven  o'clock  at  night  on  the  14th  of  December,  1799, 
George  Washington  should  die;  nor  that  forty  days  after 
Jonab  preached  tbat  sermon  Nineveb's  chance  for  mercy 
sbould  end  unless  she  repented,  than  be  has  decided  the 
point  beyond  which  you  and  I  can  not  pnss,  and  still  ob- 
tain the  Divine  clemency.  What  careful  walking  this  ought 
to  make  for  those  who  are  unsaved,  lest  tbe  bour-s^Iass  of 
their  opportunity  be  almost  empty  !  Men  and  women  do 
not  lose  their  souls  by  putting  off  repentance  forever,  but 
only  by  putting  it  off  one  second  after  tbe  time  is  up. 
They  propose  to  become  Christians  in  mid-life,  but  they  die 
in  youth  ;  or  they  propose  in  old  age  to  be  Christians,  but 
they  die  in  mid-life;  or  on  tbe  forty-first  day  they  will  attend 
to  tbe  matter,  but  on  the  fortieth  Nineveh  is  overthrown. 


35J:  THE  KNELL   OF  NINEVEH. 

Standing  on  a  ship's  deck  amidst  a  coil  of  chains,  sailors 
roughly  tell  you  to  stand  back  if  you  do  not  want  your 
limbs  broken,  or,  by  the  chains,  be  hurled  overboard,  for 
they  are  going  to  let  go  the  anchor;  and  when  the  anchor 
does  go,  the  chains  make  the  deck  smoke  with  their  speed. 
As  swiftly  our  time  runs  away  from  us.  Now  it  seems 
coiled  all  around  us  in  a  pyramid  of  years  and  days  and 
minutes  ;  but  they  are  going,  and  they  will  take  us  off  with 
their  lightning  velocity.  If  I  should  by  some  supernatural 
revelation  to-night  tell  you  just  how  long  or  how  brief  will 
be  your  opportunity  for  repentance  and  salvation,  you 
would  not  believe  me.  You  would  say,  "  I  shall  have  ten- 
fold that  time  ;  I  shall  have  a  hundredfold  that  time."  But 
you  will  not  have  more ;  you  will  have  less.  You  have 
put  off  repentance  so  long  that  3'ou  are  going  to  be  very 
much  crowded  in  this  matter  of  the  soul's  salvation.  The 
corner  of  time  that  is  left  you  is  so  small  that  you  will 
hardly  have  room  to  turn  around  in  it.  You  are  like  an 
accountant  who  has  to  have  a  certain  number  of  figures 
added  up  by  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  It  is  two  full, 
round  hours'  work,  and  it  is  a  quarter -past  three  o'clock, 
and  yet  he  has  not  begun.  You  are  like  a  man  in  a  case 
of  life  and  death  five  miles  from  the  depot,  and  the  train 
starts  in  thirty  minutes,  and  you  have  not  harnessed  the 
horse.  You  are  like  a  man  who  comes  to  the  bridge  across 
the  Naugatuck  Eiver  in  time  of  a  freshet.  The  circum- 
stances are  such  that  he  must  go  across.  The  bridge  quiv- 
ers, the  abutment  begins  to  give  way;  but  he  stands  and 
halts  and  waits,  until  the  bridge  cracks  in  twain  and  goes 
down,  hoping  then  that  on  the  floating  timbers  he  may  get 
over  to  the  other  shore. 

God  is  not  looking  inertly  and  unconcernedly  upon  the 


THE  KNEIJ.    OF  MXKVElf.  355 

position  you  occupy.  Just  as  certainly  as  there  is  a  bank 
to  tbe  East  River,  just  so  certainly  there  is  a  bank  to  the 
river  of  your  opportunity.  The  margin  is  fixed.  There 
will  be  a  limit  to  God's  forbearance.  "  Yet  forty  days,  and 
Nineveh  shall  be  overthrown." 

Still  further,  I  learn  fi'om  this  subject  that  religious  ivarn- 
ing  may  seem  j)rcposterous.  Now,  we  think  that  oxxv  city  is 
safe  from  all  foi-eign  invasion.  We  have  Fort  Hamilton, 
the  Batter}',  Fort  Lafayette,  and  a  half-dozen  strongholds ; 
but  the  city  of  Nineveh  had  fifteen  hundred  turrets,  and 
they  were  all  strongholds.  Then  it  had  for  a  natural  de- 
fense the  Tigris,  and  it  was  not  an  easy  thing  for  an  army 
to  swim  across  that  river  under  the  shadow  of  a  wall  on 
which  stood  a  defending  ai'my  ;  and  yet  it  was  through  that 
impregnable  city  that  Jonah  went,  uttering  the  waining 
words  of  my  text.  It  must  at  first  have  seemed  preposter- 
ous to  a  great  many  of  the  people.  So  it  is  now  that  relig- 
ious warning  seems  to  many  an  absurdity.  It  is  more  to 
them  a  joke  than  any  thing  else,  "Repent?  Prepare? 
Was  there  ever  a  man  with  stronger  health  than  I  have? 
Vision  clear,  hearing  alert,  lungs  stout,  heart  steady.  In- 
surance companies  tell  me  I  shall  have  seventy  years  of 
life.  My  fiither  and  mother  were  both  long-lived.  Feel 
the  muscle  in  my  arm."  Ah,  my  brother,  it  is  not  prepos- 
terous when  I  come  out  to  tell  you  that  you  need  to  make 
preparation  for  the  future.  I  have  noticed  that  it  is  the 
invalids  who  live  on.  They  take  more  care  of  their  health, 
and  so  they  outlive  the  robust  and  athletic.  I  have  no- 
ticed in  my  circle  of  acquaintances,  for  the  last  few  years, 
that  five  robust  and  athletic  men  go  out  of  life  to  one  in- 
valid. Death  prides  himself  on  the  strength  of  the  castle 
be  takes.     "Boast  not   thyself  of  the  morrow,  for  thou 


856  THE  KNELL   OF  NINEVEH. 

knowest  not  what  a  day  may  bring  forth."  Dr.  Eddy,  the 
eloquent  missionary  secretary,  died  the  other  day  from 
swallowing  a  small  flake  of  an  oyster-shell.  EmiliusLepi- 
dus  lost  his  life  by  having  his  toe  wounded.  A  splinter 
may  be  lancet  sharp  enough  to  bleed  our  life  away.  Look 
out !  The  slip  of  a  railroad  train  from  the  track,  the  rush 
of  a  runaway  horse  through  the  street,  any  one  often  thou- 
sand perils  may  be  upon  you.  "  In  such  a  day  and  hour 
as  you  think  not,  the  Son  of  man  cometh."  Your  oppor- 
tunity for  repentance  is  almost  over.  "Yet  forty  days, 
and  Nineveh  shall  be  overthrown." 

Still  further,  I  learn  from  my  subject  that  God  gives  every 
man  a  fair  chance  for  his  life.  The  iniquity  of  Nineveh 
was  accumulating.  It  had  been  rolling  up  and  rolling  up. 
There  the  city  lay — blotched,  seething,  festering  under  the 
sun.  Why  did  not  God  put  an  end  to  its  iniquity?  Why 
did  not  God  unsheathe  some  sword  of  lightning  from  the 
scabbard  of  a  storm-cloud,  and  slay  it?  Why  did  he  not 
with  some  pry  of  an  earthquake  throw  it  into  the  tomb 
where  Caraccas  and  Lisbon  now  lay?  Why  did  he  not 
submerge  it  with  the  scorn  of  his  indignation,  as  he  did 
Herculaneum  and  Pompeii?  It  was  because  he  wanted  to 
give  the  city  a  fair  chance.  You  would  have  thought  that 
thirty  days  would  have  been  enough  to  repent  in,  or  twen- 
ty days,  or  ten  days.  A}?-,  you  would  have  said,  "If  that 
city  don't  quit  its  sin  in  five  days,  it  never  will."  But  see 
the  wide  margin.  Listen  to  the  generosity  of  time.  "Yet 
forty  days !" 

Be  frank,  my  brother,  and  confess  to-night  that  God  is 
giving  you  a  fair  chance  for  safetj^,  a  better  chance  than 
he  gave  to  Nineveh.  They  had  one  prophet.  You  have 
heard  the  voices  of  fifty.     They  had  one  warning.     You 


THE  KXELL   OF  XIXEVEH.  357 

have  bad  a  thousand.  They  had  forty  days.  Some  of  you 
have  had  forty  years.  Sometimes  the  warnings  of  God 
have  come  upon  your  soul  soft  as  the  breath  of  lilies  and 
frankincense,  and  then  again  as  though  hurled  from  a  cata- 
pult of  terrific  providence.  God  has  sometimes  led  3'ou  to 
see  your  unsaved  condition  while  you  were  walking  amidst 
perils,  and  your  hair  stood  on  end,  and  you  stopped  breath- 
ing; you  thought  your  last  moment  had  come.  Or, 
through  protracted  illness,  he  allowed  you  in  many  a  mid- 
night to  think  over  this  subject,  when  all  was  still  save 
the  ticking  of  the  clock  in  the  hall  and  the  beating  of  your 
own  anxious  heart.  Warned  that  you  were  a  sinner. 
Warned  that  you  needed  a  divine  Saviour.  Warned  of 
coming  retribution.  Warned  of  an  eternity  crowded  with 
splendor  or  catastrophe.  Warned  by  the  death  of  those 
with  whom  you  were  familiar.  Warned  day  after  day, 
and  month  after  month,  and  year  after  year — warned,  warn- 
ed, warned.  Oh,  my  dear  brother!  if  your  soul  is  lost,  in 
the  day  of  judgment  you  will  have  to  acknowledge  "no 
man  in  Brooklyn  ever  had  a  better  chance  for  heaven  than 
I  had.  I  was  preached  to,  and  prayed  for,  and  divinely 
solicited.  I  was  shown  the  right,  and  fully  persuaded  of 
it ;  but  I  did  not  act  and  I  did  not  believe,  and  now,  in  the 
})resence  of  a  burning  earth  and  a  flying  heaven,  I  take  the 
whole  responsibihty.  Hear  me,  men!  angels!  devils! — I 
took  the  life  of  my  own  soul;  and  I  did  it  so  thoroughly 
that  it  is  done  forever.  And  now  I  trudge  off  over  the  hot 
desert  and  under  the  burning  sky — a  suicide!  a  suicide!" 
Yes,  I  think  yo\x  have  all  been  warned  ;  and  if  up  until 
this  very  hour  you  have  happened  to  escape  such  intima- 
tion, to-night  I  ring  it  in  your  ears:  "Yet  forty  days,  and 
Nineveh  shall  be  overthrown  !"' 


358  '^'lil^  KXELL   OF  NIXEYEir. 

Still  further,  I  learn  from  this  subject  that  ivhen  ilie  j^eo- 
jph  rejoent^  the  Lord  lets  them  off.  "While  yet  Nineveh  was 
on  its  knees,  and  Sardanapalus  sat  in  the  ashes,  and  tlie 
unfed  cattle  were  yet  moaning  in  the  air,  and  the  people 
were  yet  deploring  their  sin,  God  reversed  the  judgment, 
and  said,  "  Those  people  have  repented.  Let  them  live !" 
And  the  news  flew.  The  gardens  saved.  The  palaces 
saved.  Six  hundred  thousand  people  saved.  A  belt  of 
sixty  miles  of  city  saved.  Let  the  news  be  flung  from  one 
wall  to  the  other;  from  the  east  wall,  clear  over  to  the 
west  wall.  Let  the  bells  ring!  Let  the  cymbals  clap! 
Let  flags  be  flung  out  from  all  the  fifteen  hundred  turrets! 
Let  the  king's  lamp-lighters  kindle  up  the  throne-room  1 
"And  God  saw  their  works,  that  they  turned  from  their 
evil  way ;  and  God  repented  of  the  evil  that  he  had  said 
that  he  would  do  unto  them  :  and  he  did  it  not,"  In  other 
woi'ds,  when  a  sinner  repents,  God  repents.  The  one  gives 
up  his  sins;  the  other  gives  up  his  judgments.  The  mo- 
ment that  a  man  turns  to  God,  the  relation  of  the  whole 
universe  toward  him  is  changed,  and  the  storms,  and  the 
lightnings,  and  the  thunders,  and  the  earthquakes,  and  the 
grandeurs  of  the  judgment- day,  and  the  realities  of  the 
eternal  world,  all  become  his  coadjutors.  God  and  the 
angels  come  over  on  his  side.  Repent,  give  up  3^our  sin 
and  turn  to  God,  and  3^ou  will  be  saved.  'Ah,"  says  some 
one,  "that's  a  tough  thing  to  do."  "I  have  been  drink- 
ing," says  some  one;  or,  "  I  have  been  unchaste,"  says  some 
one;  or,  "I  have  been  blasphemous,"  says  another;  or,  "I 
have  been  a  Sabbath-breaker,"  says  another;  or,  "I  have 
a  hard  heart,"  says  another,  "and  now  you  ask  me  to  give 
up  my  sin.  I  can  not  do  it — and  I  won't  do  it."  Then 
you  will  die.     That  is  settled.     But  somebody  else  says,  "  I 


27/A'  KMA.L    OF  MXFVKlf.  359 

will  give  up  my  sin,  and  I  will  now  take  the  Lord  for  my 
})ortion."  You  will  live.  That  is  just  as  certainly  settled. 
You  will  to-nigbt  either  have  to  fling  away  sin  or  fling 
away  heaven.  The  one  is  a  husk^-the  other  is  a  coronet. 
The  one  is  a  groan — the  other  is  an  anthem.  The  one  is  a 
sting — the  other  is  an  illumination.  Chi'ist's  fair  complex- 
ion, of  which  his  contemporaries  wrote,  is  gone,  and  his 
face  is  red  and  his  hands  are  red  and  his  feet  are  red  with 
the  rushing  blood  of  his  own  suffering,  endured  to  get  you 
out  of  sin  and  death  and  hell.  Oh,  will  you  to-night  im- 
])lore  him  to  let  his  suffering  take  the  place  of  your  ill 
desert?  If  you  will,  all  is  well,  and  you  may  now  begin 
to  twist  garlands  for  your  brow,  for  you  are  already  a  vic- 
tor. All  heaven  comes  surging  upon  your  soul  in  the  an- 
nouncement, "There  is  no  condemnation  to  them  which 
are  in  Christ  Jesus."  Now,  will  you  do  it?  I  care  noth- 
ing for  a  sermon  unless  it  has  an  application,  and  this  is 
the  application  :  will  you  do  it?  "Ah,"  says  some  one,  "I 
believe  that  is  right.  I  mean  some  day  to  surrender  the 
entirety  of  my  nature  to  God.  It  is  reasonable.  I  mean 
to  be  a  Christian,  but  not  now,"  That  is  what  thousands 
of  you  are  saying. 

I  am  afraid  if  you  do  not  give  your  heart  to  God  to- 
night, you  never  will.  You  may  have  heard  of  the  ship 
Rebecca  Goddard  that  came  near  one  of  our  ports  this  last 
winter.  They  were  all  scoured  up  and  ready  for  the  land- 
ing, when,  coming  almost  into  the  harbor,  an  ice-floe  took 
the  ship  and  pushed  it  out  to  sea,  and  it  drifted  about  two 
or  three  days,  and  there  was  great  suflering,  and  one  was 
frozen  dead  at  his  post.  How  near  they  got  into  the  har- 
bor, and  yet  they  did  not  get  in!  How  many  there  are 
here  to-night  who  feel  they  are  almost  in  the  harbor  of 


360  TEE  KNELL   OF  NINEVEH. 

God's  mercy!  Why  do  you  not  come  ashore,  lest  some 
ice-floe  of  sin  and  worldliness  drive  you  out  again  to  the 
sea,  and  you  die  in  the  rigging?  I  throw  you  this  rope 
to-night.  I  hurl  you  this  warning.  Make  fast  to  heaven 
now.  This  moment  is  vanishing,  and  with  it  may  go 
every  thing;  and  so  I  run  up  and  down  through  this  au- 
dience with  the  banner  of  the  cross — Eally,  immortal  men, 
rally ! 

"  But,"  says  some  one  in  the  house,  "  I  won't  take  your 
advice.  I'll  risk  it.  I  defy  God.  Here  I  take  my  stand, 
and  I  ask  no  odds  either  of  earth  or  heaven."  Let  me  tell 
such  that  they  are  in  a  battle  where  they  will  be  worsted. 
"Yet  forty  days!"  Perhaps  thirty  days.  Perhaps  ten 
days.  Perhaps  three  days.  Perhaps  one  daj''.  Tlie 
horses  that  drag  on  that  chariot  of  doom  are  lathered  with 
the  foam  of  a  great  speed,  and  their  hoofs  clip  fire  from 
the  flinty  road,  and  their  nostrils  throb  with  the  hot  baste 
as  they  dash  on.  Get  out  of  the  way,  or  the  wheels  will 
roll  over  you.  You  can  not  endure  the  ire  of  an  incensed 
God.  Throw  yourselves  down  on  your  knees  now,  and 
pelt  the  heavens  with  blood-red  cries  for  mercy.  The  ter- 
minal chance  is  going,  the  last  chance  is  going,  going.  Oh, 
wake  up  before  you  wake  up  among  the  lost!  May  God 
Almighty,  by  his  eternal  Spirit,  wake  you  up! 

There  is  a  story  running  indistinctly  through  my  mind 
of  a  maiden  whose  lover  was  doomed  to  be  put  to  death 
when  the  curfew  bell  struck  nine  o'clock  at  night,  and  she 
thought  that  if  she  could  keep  that  bell  from  ringing  for  a 
little  while,  her  lover  and  friend  would  be  spared.  And  so, 
under  the  shadow  of  the  night,  she  crept  up  into  the  tower, 
and  laid  hold  of  the  tongue  of  the  bell.  After  a  while  the 
sexton  came  up  to  the  tower,  and  he  put  his  hand  on  the 


THE  KNELL    OF  NINEVEH.  361 

rope,  and  waited  for  the  right  moment  to  come ;  and  then 
by  the  light  of  his  lantern  and  his  watch  he  found  it  was 
nine  o'clock,  and  he  seized  the  rope,  and  he  pulled,  and 
the  bell  turned,  but  in  silence,  and  the  maiden  still  held  on 
to  the  tongue  of  the  bell  swinging  back  and  forth  wildly 
through  the  belfry,  and  the  curfew  bell  rang  not,  and  so 
time  was  gained,  and  pardon  arrived,  and  a  j^recious  life 
was  saved.  Oh,  it  seems  to  me  as  if  there  were  those  here 
doomed  to  death.  You  have  condemned  yourselves.  It 
seems  to  me  as  if  the  death -knell  of  your  immortal  soul 
were  about  to  strike.  The  angel  of  God's  justice  has  his 
hand  on  the  rope,  and  yet  I  seize  the  tongue  of  that  bell, 
and  I  hold  on,  hoping  to  gain  a  little  time,  and  I  cry  out, 
"0  God!  not  yet!  not  yet!"  hoping  that  time  may  be 
gained,  and  pardon  may  fly  from  the  throne,  and  your  soul 
may  live.  May  the  God  who  saved  Nineveh  save  you ! 
But  some  of  you  have  put  it  off  so  long  that  I  fear  your 
time  is  up. 

16 


562  riLLows  usdeh  the  ajlvh. 


PILLOWS  UNDER  THE  ARMS. 

"Woe  to  them  that  sew  pillows  to  all  armholes." — Ezekiel  xiii.,  18. 

THE  Chaldeans  were  to  capture  Jerusalem.  God  said 
so.  False  prophetesses  denied  it,  and,  to  quell  the 
anxieties  of  the  people,  employed  a  significant  symbol  by 
sewing  little  pillows  under  the  arms,  as  much  as  to  say, 
"  Whenever  you  feel  these  soft  pads  at  the  arm-sleeves,  be- 
think yourselves  all  shall  be  easy  and  well."  But  alas  for  the 
delusion  1  Notwithstanding  all  the  smoothness  of  the  proph- 
ecy, Jerusalem  went  down  in  darkness  and  fire  and  blood. 
It  is  not  more  certain  that  you  are  here  this  morning, 
not  more  certain  that  that  is  a  window,  not  more  certain 
that  that  is  a  ceiling,  not  more  certain  that  that  is  a  chair, 
not  more  certain  that  that  is  a  carpet,  than  it  is  certain 
that  God  has  declared  destruction  to  the  finally  impenitent. 
iTnTve^rsalism  comes  out,  and  tries  to  quell  this  fear,  and 
wants  to  sew  two  pillows  under  my  arm-sleeves,  and  wants 
to  sew  two  pillows  under  your  arm-sleeves.  It  shall  not 
do  it.  God  helping  me,  I  shall,  this  morning,  put  before 
my  own  soul  and  yours  the  absorbing  facts,  and  I  shall 
try  to  snatch  their  pillow  of  false  peace  from  under  the 
arms  of  my  auditors,  and  show  you  what  the  perils  are, 
that  you  may,  one  and  all,  escape  them.  Suppose  there 
is  some  real  danger  ahead,  and  a  man  comes  into  your 
house,  and  sa3'S,  "  There  is  no  peril ;  be  at  peace!"  and  an- 
other neighbor  comes  in,  and  says,  "  There  is  a  peril,  and 
I  know  how  you  can  escape  it,  and  I  come  to  tell  you ;" 


PILLOWS  UNDER  THE  ARMS.  363 

"which  is  the  best  friend  and  the  best  neighbor?  Why, 
the  hitter,  of  course,  and  I  want  to  act  his  part  to-day. 

There  are  two  branches  of  Universahsm  :  one  made  up 
of  the  Restorationists,  who,  while  they  admit  there  may  be 
some  punishment  in  the  future  world, .say  it  will  come  to 
an  end,  and  the  sou],  through  a  process  of  reformation,  will 
come  up  at  last  into  light,  and  joy,  and  peace,  and  vic- 
tory ;  but  the  vast  majority  of  the  Universalists  that  I 
have  met  in  the  world  believe  that  there  is  no  future  pun- 
ishment at  all,  and  that,  whatever  may  have  been  our  char- 
acter in  this  world,  the  moment  we  step  across  the  line 
into  the  future  world  we  are  completely  happy  !  People 
need  not  tell  me  that  is  not  Universalism.  I  take  it  not 
from  books;  I  take  it  from  my  own  observation,  and  my 
frequent  converse  with  men  who  have  adopted  such  the- 
ories. However,  all  Universalists  agree  in  saying  that  the 
human  race  will  all  eventually  be  happy. 

I  shall,  this  morning,  show  you  that  Universalism,  under 
any  shape,  is  unscriptural,  unreasonable,  destructive  of 
good  morals,  withering  to  all  earnestness  in  soul -saving, 
and  the  means  of  eternal  catastrophe  to  a  great  many. 
You  say,  "Do  you  think  to  impose  upon  us,  this  morning, 
by  bringing  out  that  old  obsolete  book,  the  Bible — a  book 
fit  only  for  grandmothers  in  their  second  childhood — and 
j^ropose  to  prove  any  thing  by  that?"  I  respond  by  say- 
ing it  is  most  reasonable  to  expect  that  God  would  give 
this  race  some  kind  of  a  revelation.  Well,  if  God  has 
given  a  revelation,  which  is  it?  I  can  now  think  of  only 
five  books  that  pretend  to  be  Divine  revelations:  the 
Koran,  the  Shastcr,  the  Zcndavesta,  the  Confucius  writ- 
ings, and  the  Bible.  Which  of  those  five  books  do  you 
prefer  to  believe  a  Divine  revelation?     The  vast  majority 


364  PILLOWS  UNDER  THE  ARMS. 

of  the  people  in  the  audience  say,  "  Give  us  the  Bible. 
We  take  that."  Will  you  stand  by  it  through  all  this 
argument  of  the  morning?  "Yes,"  you  say.  So  will  I 
stand  by  it.  Having  made  up  our  minds  that  this  is  the 
binding  statute  in  the  case,  now  I  solemnly  impanel  all 
this  audience  as  a  jury  for  the  trial,  and  I  shall  proceed  to 
open  the  cause  and  to  call  the  witnesses. 

To  prove  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  future  punish- 
ment, I  first  call  up  Dives  the  lost.  Let  him  be  sworn. 
He  was  a  man  of  great  influence  in  the  world.  There  is 
no  reason  why  he  should  falsify.  Question:  "  Dives,  is 
there  a  perdition?"  Ansioer:  "Yes,  I  have  just  come 
from  it.  It  is  torment.  I  can't  get  any  thing  there  to 
cool  my  tongue.  I  want  a  drop  of  water,  but  I  can't  get 
it.  Do  send  word  to  my  five  brothers,  that  they  come  not 
into  that  suffering."  Universalism  tries  to  impeach  this 
witness  by  saying  it  is  all  allegory.  Lazarus  the  saved  is 
the  Gentile  converted  ;  and  Dives,  who  lifted  up  his  eyes 
in  hell,  being  in  torment,  is  the  Jew  whose  spiritual  priv- 
ileges were  cut  oif  in  this  world !  If  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  were  going  to  make  an  allegory,  he  would  not  make 
one  so  imbecile  as  that.  I  do  not  wonder  that  Universal- 
ists  have  wrenched  that  passage  until  they  got  red  in  the 
face,  to  make  it  mean  something  else  ;  but  in  all  ages  of 
the  past,  and  in  all  ages  of  the  future,  the  common-sense 
reading  of  that  Scripture  is  that  Lazarus  went  to  heaven, 
and  Dives  went  to  hell,  and  there  was  a  gulf  fixed  between 
them  they  could  never  cross  over. 

The  next  witness  I  call  in  the  case  is  an  old  bent-over 
man.  It  is  Paul  the  apostle.  Question:  "Paul,  is  there  a 
perdition?"  Ansioer:  "In  flaming  fire  taking  vengeance 
upon  those  who  know  not  God." 


PILLOWS  UNDER  THE  ARMS.  365 

The  next  witness  is  a  gray -bearded  man,  clothed  ia 
rough  hair-cloth.  It  is  Isaiah  the  prophet.  Question: 
"Isaiah,  is  there  such  a  place  as  perdition?"  Answer: 
"Their  worm  dieth  not,  and  their  fire  is  not  quenched." 

The  next  witness  looks  as  though  he  may  have  been 
very  ruddy  and  beautiful  once,  but  he  has  lost  his  beauty 
and  ruddiness,  through  much  family  trouble.  It  is  David 
— David  the  psalmjst^ Question:  "David,  is  there  any  per- 
dition?" Answer:  "The  wicked  shall  be  turned  into  hell, 
and  all  the  nations  that  forget  God." 

The  next  witness  is  a  very  mild  and  lovable  man.  It  is 
John  the  inspired.-  Question:  "John,  is  there  any  such 
place  as  perdition?"  Answe-i :  -'They  shall  drink  of  the 
wine  of  the  wrath  of  Almighty  God.  poured  without  mixt- 
ure into  the  cup  of  his  indignation.' '  And  he  stops  a 
moment 'f6"take  breath,  and  then  he  says,  "They  shall  be 
tormented  in  fire  and  brimstone  in  the  presence  of  the 
angels."  And  he  stops  again  to  take  breath,  and  then 
snys,  "  The  smoke  of  their  torment  ascendeth  up  for  ever 
and  ever." 

But  the  most  important  witness  is  to  come.  He  comes 
with  feet  blistered  by  the  long  way,  with  sickly  looks  fi'om 
sleeplessness  and  exposure.  It  is  the  Son  of  God ;  He  be- 
fore whom  we  bow  ourselves  down,  not  worthy  even  to 
kiss  his  feet,  and  we  say  in  all  reverence,  "O  Jesus,  is 
there  a  perdition?"  And  he  answers,  "At  the  end  of  the 
world  the  Son  of  man  shall  send  forth  his  angels,  and  they 
shall  gather  out  of  his  kingdom  all  things  that  offend,  and 
shall  cast  them  into  a  furnace  of  fire  ;  there  shall  be  wail- 
ing and  gnashing  of  teeth."  And,  after  stopping  a  mo- 
ment, he  says,  "  The  children  of  the  kingdom  shall  be  cast 
out  into  outer  darkness.     There   shall  be  weeping   and 


366  riLLows  under  the  arms. 

gnashing  of  teeth."  Then  he  stops  a  moment,  and  he  re- 
:sumes,  "Depart  from  me,  ye  cursed,  into  everlasting  fire, 
prepared  for  the  devil  and  his  angels." 

'•  Enough  !"  you  say.  Isaiah,  and  David,  and  Paul,  and 
John,  and  Christ  are  enough."  But  I  will  not  stop  here. 
I  bring  you  documentary  evidence  in  the  parable  of  the 
tares,  already  referred  to  in  Christ's  testimony.  You  re- 
member, in  the  parable  of  the  tares,  that  some  people  were 
thrown  into  a  furnace  of  fire,  while  it  says  the  righteous 
shine  forth  as  the  sun  in  the  kingdom  of  their  Father.  Do 
you  know  how  the  Universalists  have  squeezed  and  dis- 
torted that  passage?  They  have  done  so  until  they  have 
made  the  furnace  to  be  Jerusalem,  and  those  who  are  to 
shine  forth  as  the  sun  in  their  Father's  kingdom  are  the 
Jews  who  did  not  happen  to  get  killed  iu  the  earthly  wars 
— an  interpretation  that  would  throw  any  audience  into 
convulsions  of  laughter  if  the  aw  fulness  of  the  theme  did 
not  forbid  merriment. 

You  said  you  would  take  the  Bible  for  the  standard  of 
this  trial.  Gentlemen  of  the  jury,  now  I  hold  you  to  your 
word,  ami  I  demand  that  you  admit  the  awful  truth  that 
there  is  a  future  punishment.  "But,"  say  the  Restoration- 
ists,  "  we  admit  there  is  a  future  punishment,  but  it  comes 
tojin  end."  My  good  friends,  when  will  it  come  to  an 
end?  I  think  we  shall  have  to  call  back  some  of  the 
witnesses  we  have  sworn  in  this  case.  "John  the  inspired, 
what  is  the  duration  of  that  punishment?"  He  answers: 
"  The  smoke  of  their  torment  ascendeth  up  for  ever  and 
everJ"'  How  long  is  that  ?  I  call  up  Isaiah  again. 
"Isaiah,  how  long  does  this  punishment  last?"  "Their 
worm  dieih  not,  their  fire  is  not  quenched^  I  call  up  Paul 
again.     He  says,  "  They  shall  be  punished  with  everlasting 


riLLO\VS   UNDER  THE  ARMS.  367 

destruction  in  the  presence  of  the  Lord."  I  ask  reverently 
ngaiu  the  Lord  ^rstts  Christ  how  long  this  punishment 
lasts,  and  he  replies,  "  Tliese  shall  go  away  into  everlasting 
])uuishinent."  And  he  says  again,  "Depart,  ye  cursed,  into 
everlasting  fire."  I  leave  it  to  your  common  sense  what 
that  means,  what  it  must  mean. 

"  But,"  say  a  great  many,  "  you  ought  to  go  back  to 
the  Greek,  and  find  out  that  that  word  everlasting  doesn't 
mean  what  you  have  been  representing  it  to  mean."  So 
J^herc  are  persons  who  could  not  parse  a  Greek  sentence  to 
save  themselves  fiom  being  hanged,  and  who  do  not  know 
the  difference  between  Kappa  and  Epsilon,  who  talk  about 
Greek.  I  reply,  if  there  had  been  a  great  difference  be- 
tween the  original  and  our  translation,  God  would  before 
this  have  given  it  to  us  in  plain  English,  so  that  we  who 
do  not  know  Greek  could  understand  it.  You  can  not 
make  me  believe  that  God  would  keep  the  truth  as  to  our 
eternal  destiny  covered  up  in  a  heap  of  Greek  roots.  Do 
you  want  to  be  learned?  Come,  now,  and  let  us  all  be 
learned  together,  and  go  back  and  read  that  passage: 
''These  shall  go  away  into  everlasting  punishment,  but  the 
righteous  into  life  eternal.'^  The  same  Greek  word  in  one 
place  is  translated  "everlasting,"  and  in  the  other  "eter- 
nal;" and  if  you  bedwarf  the  word  "everlasting,"  you 
must  bedwarf  the  word  "eternal."  If  you  dwindle  up  the 
sufferings  of  the  lost,  then  you  must  dwindle  up  the  re- 
joicings of  the  saved.  The  same  effort  which  would  break 
a  chain  would  snap  a  harp-string.  The  same  effort  that 
would  uptear  a  dungeon  would  pull  down  a  mansion. 
The  same  effort  that  would  stop  a  groan  would  choke  a 
hallelujah,  "These  shall  go  away  into  everlasting  punish- 
ment, but  the  righteous  into  life  eternal^     If  in  the  cue 


368  PILLOWS  UNDER  TEE  ARMS. 

case  the  sufferings  are  not  to  be  eternal,  in  the  other  case 
the  rejoicings  are  not  to  be  eternal.  But  there  is  nothing 
that  makes  me  so  tired  as  being  learned,  and  so  I  come 
back  from  the  Greek  to  the  plain  English  translation,  good 
enough  for  you  and  good  enough  for  me.  This  Bible  saj^s 
that  a  man  who  commits  the  unpardonable  sin  shall  be 
forgiven  neither  in  this  world  nor  in  the  world  to  come. 
What  does  that  mean?  Where  is  your  restoration  after 
the  grave?  "He  shall  be  forgiven  neither  in  this  world 
nor  in  the  world  to  come."  You  Eestorationists,  put  youj 
hand-screw  on  that.  Try  to  twist  that  around,  so  it  shall 
not  mean  what  God  here  makes  it  to  mean.  Shall  neither 
be  forgiven  in  this  world  nor  in  the  world  that  is  to  come! 

Oh,  my  friends,  either  throw  overboard  your  Bible,  or 
throw  overboard  Universalism.    I  press  yon  to  that  choice  , 
to-day,  and  you  must  make  it.     The  whole  Bible  is  against  j 
Universalism.     Ezekiel  is  against  it.     Jeremiah  is  againsfe! 
it.     Isaiah  is  against  it.     David  is  against  it.     Matthew  isjj 
against  it.     Mark  is  against  it.     Luke  is  against  it.     John|l 
is  against  it.     Eomans  is  against  it.     Corinthians  is  againstl 
it.     Thessalonians  is  against  it,     Eevelation  is  against  it; 
Now,  I  do  not  at  this  moment  say  that  the  Bible  is  in- 
spired, or  even  a  virtuous  book ;  but  I  do  sa}',  if  the  Bible 
is  right,  then  Universalism  is  wrong — awfully  wrong,  out- 
rageously wrong,  infinitely  wrong,  everlastingly  wrong. 

Still  further,  Universalism  is  unreasonable.  Here  is  a 
railroad  map.  There  is  aiong  line  of  railroads  reaching 
from  New  York  to  California.  There  is  a  line  of  railroads 
reaching  from  New  York  to  Boston.  There  is  a  line  of 
railroads  reaching  from  New  York  to  Philadelphia.  They 
will  come  out  at  the  same  place.  "No,"  you  say,  "they 
do  not."     You  tell  me  that  one  ends  in  Boston,  and  the 


PILLOWS  UNDER  THE  ARMS.  369 

Other  in  Philadelpliia,  and  the  other  in  San  Francisco.  I 
den}^  it.  If  jou  want  me  to  believe  that,  prove  it.  "  Well," 
you  say,  "I  can  very  easily  prove  it.  One  railroad  goes 
north,  and  the  other  south,  and  the  other  goes  west."  "  Oh," 
I  say,  "you  are  right.  I  admit  you  are  right.  I  yield 
the  position."  In  other  words,  you  argue  that  railroads 
that  go  in  opposite  directions  can  not  come  out  at  the  same 
place.  Now,  here  are  two  roads  for  the  soul's  travel.  The 
one  is  faith  in  Christ,  helpful  services  to  others,  a  struggle 
for  consecration,  and  doing  better  all  the  way  up.  That 
is  one  road.  Howard  went  that  road.  Wilberforce  went 
that  road.  Paul  went  that  road.  Ten  thousand  times  ten 
thousand  w^ent  that  road.  Here  is  the  other  road.  It 
starts  with  the  rejection  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  keeps  on  in 
sin,  and  in  rebellion  against  God,  all  the  way  through. 
Eobespierre  went  on  that  road.  Nero  went  on  that  road. 
All  the~15a(i  people  that  have  ever  lived  and  died  have 
gone  on  that  road  ;  and  the  two  roads  being  in  opposite 
directions,  they  must  come  out  at  opposite  termini.  Noth- 
ing but  moral  insanity  can  make  you  think  any  different- 
ly. By  inexorable  geometry,  by  common  sense,  by  a  cal- 
culation plainer  than  that  twice  three  are  six,  you  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  opposite  directions  of  travel  must 
bring  opposite  eternal  destinies. 

"But,"  say  the  Rcstorationists,  "  the  punishment  in  the 
lost  world,  which  we  admit,  is  rcformator\'-,  and  the  souls 
that  go  there  will  gradually  struggle  up  into  thorough 
felicity."  Absurdity  infinite!  Two  Sabbaths  ago,  while  I 
stood  in  this  place,  talking,  among  other  things,  about  the 
outrages  of  the  Eaymond  Street  Jail  —  outrages  which,  I 
have  been  informed  by  prominent  official  authority  in  this 
city,  I  did  not  more  than  half  state — at  that  very  moment 

16* 


370'  ^'A        TILLOWS  UNDER  THE  AR2IS. 


there  was  a  girl  of  fifteen  years  in  tliat  Raymond  Street 
Jail,  imploring  that  she  might  be  in  a  cell  alone.  She  said, 
"These  wretches  around  here  are  telling  me  filthy  stories 
all  the  time.  I  can't  stand  it  here.  I  want  to  be  alone." 
She  knew,  what  every  one  knows,  that  bad  associations  are 
not  reformatory.  And  yet  you  try  to  make  me  believe 
that  in  that  world  where  all  the  desperadoes  and  aban- 
doned have  gone,  the  soul  is  going  to  get  better.  Will  the 
thieves  make  it  honest?  Will  the  libertines  make  it  pure? 
Will  the  blasphemers  make  it  holy? 

The  perdition  of  ungodly  men  is  a  very  poor  reform 
school.  By  inevitable  law  you  know  that  bad  society 
makes  people  worse,  and  that  Herod  on  earth  was  mild  and 
beautiful  compared  with  what  he  is  now,  and  that  the  men 
who  died  on  the  scaffold  for  their  crimes  were  benefactors 
and  philanthropists  compared  with  their  present  character. 
Worse,  and  getting  worse.  But  it  from  that  world  they 
reall}^  struggle  out — have  any  ot  taem  got  out  yet?  Will 
Robespierre  be  in  heaven  in  time  to  welcome  the  grand- 
children of  the  men  he  butchered?  Will  James  Fisk  be 
in  heaven  in  time  to  welcome  the  widows  and  orphans 
whose  property  he  swamped  in  a  Wall  Street  panic?  Oh, 
what  a  delicious,  savory  place  heaven  would  be  if  the 
wretches  who  went  down  into  their  graves  unwashed  got 
there !  You  have  a  child  in  heaven,  you  have  a  sister  in 
heaven — do  you  think  of  them  as  being  in  that  kind  of 
society  ? 

If,  as  the  great  majority  of  the  Universalists  argue,  there 
is  no  hell,  tell  me,  then,  where  the  people  of  Sodom  and 
Gomorrah  went?  If  all  is  fiiir  beyond  the  line  of  this 
world,  irrespective  of  our  character  here,  then  the  men 
who  stole  Charley  Ross,  and  who  were  shot  for  their  crimes, 


PILLOWS   VSUEli   THE  AJL)Ji>.  371 

are  better  off  to-day  than  the  parents  who  sit  frenzied  with 
grief,  waiting  for  the  pattering  of  the  feet  of  the  little  cap- 
tive; then  Ananias  was  better  off  than  Sapphira,  for  he 
lied  first,  and  so  beat  his  wife  three  or  four  minutes  into 
glor3^     There  is  a  hell.     Your  common  sense  declares  it. 

Still  farther,  Universalism  is,  willingly  or  unwillinglj', 
the  abettor  of  bad  morals.  It  is  the  high-priest  of  suicide. 
How  manj^  people  there  have  been  who  have  got  tired  of 
their  troubles,  and  said,  "Here,  w^e  must  get  out  of  these 
troubles.  We  will  just  take  our  own  lives,  then  we  will 
be  free.  There  is  nothing  between  us  and  glory  but  a 
phial  of  laudanum  or  a  revolver;"  and  so  they  swallowed 
the  laudanum  or  cracked  the  revolver,  and  that  has  been 
the  end  of  it.  They  step  right  over  into  glory.  They  have 
been  taught  so.  You  know  that  all  those  who  in  their 
right  mind  commit  suicide — for  I  speak  not  of  those  who 
are  deranged,  and  take  their  own  lives ;  they  are  not  respon- 
sible for  any  thing  they  do — but  I  say  that  the  majority 
of  those  who  in  their  seeming  right  mind  take  their  own 
lives,  leave  a  letter  on  the  table,  saying,  "Meet  me  in  lieav- 
en."  They  are  going  right  over.  Oh,  if  that  doctrine  be 
true,  why  do  not  some  of  you  who  have  been  struggling 
with  overwhelming  troubles  put  an  end  to  them,  and  buy 
an  overdose  of  belladonna  on  your  way  home,  or  this  aft- 
ernoon leap  from  the  top  of  your  house,  and  get  straight 
into  glorj'? 

"For  who  would  bear  the  whips  and  pcorns  of  time, 
The  op))!essov's  wrong,  the  proud  man's  contumely, 

«  «  sX  <«  >K  « 

When  he  himself  miglit  h.is  quietus  make 
"With  a  bare  bodkin  ?" 

Why  does  he  not  do  it?    It  is  because  the  man  knows  that 


372  riLLows  under  the  abm^. 

if,  in  his  sane  moments,  he  takes  his  own  life,  he  drops  into 
ruin. 

A  man  near  Utica,  New  York,  sent  for  his  pastor,  a  Uni- 
versalist  minister,  and  said  to  him,  "If  I  should  die  now, 
would  I  go  to  heaven?"  "Most  certainly,"  the  minister 
replied.  "  You  think  there  is  no  possible  doubt  about  it?" 
"None  at  all,  sir."  "Well,"  said  the  man,  "I  have  had 
trouble  enough,  now  I  am  going  away  from  it.  I  am  go- 
ing to  leave  the  world,  and  I  am  going  now  ;"  and  he  drew 
a  pistol,  and  put  it  to  his  own  temple,  when  the  minister 
clutched  his  arm,  and  said,  "  Stop !  stop !  there  may  be  a 
hell !"  Then  the  man  turned  to  the  minister,  and  said, 
"You  preach  what  you  don't  believe.  You  are  a  de- 
ceiver." If  there  be  a  man  in  this  house  to-day  who  has 
at  any  time  had  the  idea  of  taking  his  own  life,  let  me  per- 
suade you  not  to  sit  down  and  write,  "  Meet  me  in  heav- 
en ;"  you  will  not  go  there.  The  fact  that  there  is  a  per- 
dition is  the  mightiest  moral  restraint  that  the  world  has 
ever  felt.  When  you  try  to  upset  this  doctrine  of  a  future 
place  of  punishment,  you  are  abetting  crime. 

Universalist  churches  in  our  cities  are  surrounded  by  so 
many  churches  of  other  kinds  that  you  can  not  see  their 
full  influence;  but  in  the  New  England  villages,  or  the 
villages  at  the  Far  West,  where  there  is  only  one  church, 
and  that  a  Universalist  church,  or  where  the  Universalist 
church  is  dominant  over  all  others — in  such  villages,  inev- 
itably and  always,  you  find  profane  swearing,  drunken- 
ness, Sabbath -breaking,  lust,  and  every  form  of  abomina- 
tion, rampant.  Give  the  doctrine  of  Universalism  full 
swing  in  any  village,  or  in  any  city,  and  it  consumes  it — 
financiall}'',  morally,  and  spiritually.  I  have  seen  its  ef- 
fects again  and  again  in  the  villages  at  the  West,  where  it 


PILLOWS  UXDEli  THE  ARMS.  373 

left  not  one  green  thing.  I  tell  you  that  that  doctrine  is 
the  foe  of  God  and  man ;  and,  come  fair  or  foul,  I  hold  it 
up  in  the  presence  of  this  audience  for  your  denunciation. 
"  Thou  shalt  not  surely  die,"  was  the  first  plaster  that  the 
devil  ever  spread ;  but  he  spread  it  so  large,  there  is  enough  .  d ' 
to  salve  the  consciences  of  ages.  ^«j  ^ 

Still  further,  Universalism  is  withering  to  all  earnestness  /^ 
in  soul-saving.  What  is  the  matter  with  a  great  many  of 
the  Protestant  churches  to-day  ?  They  have  this  disease 
of  Universalism  in  a  milder  form.  They  adopt  the  Heidel- 
berg Catecliisin  or  the  Westminster  Assembly,  or  they  sit 
in  Methodist  conferences  or  in  Baptist  associations;  but 
there  is  so  much  Universalism  in  the  air,  they  are  cowed 
down.  They  dare  not  preach  a  rugged  Gospel.  They  sa}'' 
"heaven"  with  a  shout,  but  they  say  "hell"  with  a  whis- 
per; so  that  the  people  do  not  know  exactly  what  they  did 
say ;  and  the  Calvinists  think  they  said  "  hell,"  and  the 
Eestorationists  think  they  said  "  bell,"  and  the  merchants 
think  they  said  "sell,"  J^nd  so  they  arc  all  satisfied.  Oh,  I 
abhor  this  namby-painbyism  in  religion!  What  is  the 
reason  we  do  not  have  any  more  conversions  in  our 
churches?  It  is  because  we  do  not  sufficiently  preach  re- 
wards and  punishments.  We  tell  the  righteous  it  shall  be 
well  with  them ;  but  not  in  the  same  emphasis  do  we  tell 
the  wicked  it  shall  be  ill  with  them. 

Why  did  Samuel  Davies,  and  Nettleton,  and  Baxter, 
and  the  Wesleys,  and  Whitefield,  and  Osborne,  and  Daniel 
Baker  count  the  conversions  under  their  ministry  by  tens 
and  tens  of  thousands?  It  was  because  their  sermons  rang 
with  the  doxologies  of  the  saved,  and  crackled  with  the 
fires  of  the  lost. 

Did  you  ever  hear  of  a  great  awakening  in  a  Univer-  \ 


374  PILLOWS   UMJER   THE  ARMS. 

salist  cliurcb?  Never.  What  would  they  get  awakened 
about?  They  are  all  safe,  alwa3's  have  been  safe,  always 
will  be.  What  is  the  use  of  the  jailer's  rushing  through 
between  the  falling  walls  of  the  prison,  crying,  "  What 
must  I  do  to  be  saved?"  He  was  safe  before  the  prison 
began  to  rock.  What  is  the  use  of  the  sinking  man's  cry- 
ing, "Lord,  save;  I  perish?"  Stop  your  noise.  The  wa- 
ter is  not  up  to  your  chin !  What  is  the  use  of  making 
such  a  fuss  about  three  thousand  souls  saved  on  the  Day 
of  Pentecost?  They  were  as  saved  before  as  they  were 
after.  What  did  Paul  mean  when  he  feared  becoming  a 
castaway?  Cast  away  on  what  coast?  The  coast  of  ever- 
lasting love  ?  Why  are  the  wicked  in  the  last  day  repre- 
sented as  crying  out,  "Eocks  and  mountains,  fall  on  us,  and 
hide  us  from  the  face  of  the  Lamb?"  No  danger!  Ob,  if 
we  want  to  bring  souls  to  Jesus  Christ,  men  and  women  of 
God,  we  must  tell  the  whole  truth,  and  hide  none  of  it! 

What  means  that  picture,  in  some  of  the  old  books,  rep- 
resenting Martin  Luther  almost  bent  double  by  a  paroxysm 
of  earnestness  while  he  is  preaching  about  men's  souls? 
What  meant  Thomas  Chalmers,  standing  in  his  Edinburgh 
pulpit,  warning  people  to  flee  from  the  wrath  to  come  until 
he  actually  foamed  at  the  mouth  ?  Why  did  John  Sum- 
merficld  and  Robert  M'Cheyne  preach  themselves  so  early 
into  the  grave?  Why  was  it  that  when  Mr.  Venn  de- 
scribed the  perils  of  an  immortal  soul,  history  tells  us  the 
audience  "  dropped  like  slacked  lime  ?"'  Why  was  Edward 
Payson  so  anxious  for  the  salvation  of  men  that  his  doc- 
tors said  his  body  was  in  a  continuous  fever?  Oh,  my 
brethren,  what  wo  in  the  ministry  most  want  is  to  be 
aroused,  convicted,  melted,  rebaptized,  surcharged  with  the 
power  of  the  Lord  God  Almighty.     Swinnoch  said  a  thing 


PILLOWS   UNDER   THE  AILVS.  QJo 

that  made  iiic  quake,  body,  mind,  and  soul,  when  I  first 
read  it.  He  said,  "It  is  an  awful  thing  to  fall  into  hell 
from  under  a  pulpit;  but  what  an  awful  thing  to  fall  into 
hell  out  of  a  pulpit."  Oh,  that  God  would  give  us  grace 
to  see  the  infinite  sham  of  modern  Universalism,  and  give 
us  wisdom  to  stop  sewing  pillows  under  the  arm-sleeves! 

0  my  soul,  wake  up!  Ministers  of  Jesus  Christ,  in  the 
United  States  and  Great  Britain,  wake  up!  There  is  a 
hell,  and  it  is  our  place  to  keep  people  out  of  it. 

Still  further,  Universalism  has  ruined  for  eternity  a  great 
many  souls.  East -south -east  of  Boston  there  is  a  light- 
"h'ouse  called  Minot's  Ledge  Light -house.  It  was  with 
great  difficulty  that  the  Government,  in  1857,  put  down 
but  four  stones,  and  in  1858  they  put  down  but  six  laj-ers 
of  stone  ;  but  after  a  while  the  work  was  accomplished. 
It  is  very  important  that  there  should  be  a  light-house 
there.  When  the  wind  is  blowing  from  the  north-east, 
and  ships  are  coming  on  toward  Boston  harbor,  if  they 
happen  to  miss  the  harbor  they  go  on  that  rock  but  for 
the  light-house.  I  see  one  of  the  freight  line  of  the  Cunard- 
ers  coming  on  toward  Boston  harbor.  The  wind  is  north- 
east.    There  are  a  hundred  passengers  on  board  the  vessel. 

1  slyly  get  into  ^linot's   Ledge  Light -house.     I  go  up 
the  winding  stairs  until  I  come  to  the  top,  and  with  a  ham- 
mer I  break  the  glass,  and  I  blow  out  the  light.     The  cap- 
tain  of  the  Cunarder  is  pacing  the  deck,  not  knowing  ex-  {p.   P 
actly  what  to  do.     "The  wind  is  from  the  north-east,"  he 
says.     "It  is  getting  pretty  late  to  go  in  to-night,  but  we   V 
are  not  anywhere  near  Minot's  Ledge  Light-house.     I  am   / 
a  little  confused  about  the  lights  along  the  coast,  but  i^  - 
think  I  will  try  it."     Ilark  !     There  is  a  grating  on  the   7 
bottom  of  the  steamer.     There  is  a  quiver  from  stem  to 


376  riLL0W3   UNDER   THE  ARMS. 

Stern.  Then  there  is  a  keeling  over,  and  a  crash!  All 
lost!  All  lost!  Whose  fault  was  it?  The  captain's? 
No.  Never  a  braver  man  walked  the  deck.  Was  it  the 
crew's?  No.  They  were  faithful  fellows.  Whose  fault? 
Mine^  for  I  blew  out  the  light. 

Now,  let  me  say  that  every  minister  of  the  Gospel  and 
every  Christian  man  is  a  light-house-keeper.  Upon  him 
is  a  greater  responsibility  than  ever  rested  upon  the  man 
who  keeps  the  Bell  Rock  Light -house,  off  Scotland,  or 
the  Barnegat  or  Hatteras  Light-house.  God  has  kindled 
a  great  illumination  on  all  the  rocks  of  danger,  saying, 
"Stand  off!  Yonder  is  your  harbor.  Yonder  is  your 
wharf.  Yonder  are  your  friends,  w^aiting  to  greet  you. 
Rocks  here — nothing  but  rocks.  Stand  off!"  What  does 
Universalism  do?  It  comes  up,  and  blows  out  the  light. 
It  says,  "Sail  on.  There  are  no  rocks  for  immortal  ship- 
wreck. Sail  on.  All  is  well.  All  is  well."  Oh,  what  a 
responsibility !  I  would  rather  be  the  engineer  of  a  rail 
train  with  four  or  five  hundred  passengers  coming  on 
when  the  drawbridge  is  off,  and  know  it,  and  yet  not  stop, 
than  a  Universalist  minister  taking  a  whole  church  with 
him  off  the  brink,  giving  them  no  warning,  blowing  no 
trumpet,  never  crying  out,  "The  rocks!  The  rocks!" 
Universalism  is  a  deception  high  as  heaven  and  deep  as 
hell ;  and  if  it  be  let  alone,  it  will  ruin  half  the  race.  But 
it  is  not  going  to  be  let  alone.  The  Church  of  God,  as  it 
rises  up  to  its  mission,  will  cry  the  alarm  to  the  people,  and 
there  will  go  up  prayer  to  God,  so  that  he  will  flash  upon 
the  nations  these  tremendous  realities. 

If  I  live  forty  years  to  preach — and  I  expect  to  preach 
forty  years  longer — I  want  to  spend  the  whole  time  in  set- 
ting before  men  the  two  destinies  of  eternal  life  and  eternal 


J'lLLU]]'^   UyDEIi  THE  AUMS.  37/ 

darkness.  But  if  I  should  not  live  as  long  as  that,  and  if 
this  should  be  the  last  sermon  I  shall  ever  preach,  as  it 
may  be,  then  I  want  you  to  take  this  as  my  dying  testi- 
mony:  there  is  a  heaven — there  is  a  hell.  Accept  of 
Christ,  and  you  reach  the  one;  reject  him,  and  you  drop 
headlong  into  the  other. 

But  it  is  time  for  this  jury  to  render  their  verdict.  I 
have  shown  you  that  Universalism  is  unscriptural,  un- 
reasonable ;  that  it  is  destructive  to  good  morals ;  that  it  is 
withering  to  all  earnestness  in  saving  souls ;  that  it  is  the 
eternal  discomfiture  of  a  great  many  people.  In  courts  of 
law,  when  the  jury  come  in,  they  stand  and  render  their 
verdict :  the  foreman  giving  the  verdict  and  the  clerk  of 
the  court  writing  it  down;  but  in  this  religious  assem- 
blage you  must  render  the  verdict  in  silence,  seated,  so  far 
as  you  have  room  to  be  seated,  God  listening,  and  angels 
recording. 

If  what  I  have  said  this  morning  is  true,  what  arc  you 
going  to  do  about  it?  What  step  will  you  take?  My 
soul  has  been  wrung  with  the  awfuluess  of  this  theme.  If 
God  had  not  helped  me,  I  should  have  fallen  down  be- 
tween my  chair  and  your  pew ;  but  I  did  not  dare  to  hold 
back  the  theme.  As  I  expect  to  meet  my  Maker  and  my 
Judge,  I  did  not  dare  to  hide  any  of  the  truth  ;  but  I  was 
all  the  time  sustained  with  the  idea  that  I  could,  before  I 
got  through,  tell  you  how  to  get  off  from  your  peril;  and 
that  if  I  pointed  you  to  the  flaming  sword,  it  was  only  to 
show  you  a  refuge ;  and  if  I  showed  you  a  chasm,  it  was 
only  to  show  you  a  bridge  over  it.  The  Lord  Jesus  to- 
day breaks  through  all  obstacles,  and  runs  against  the  op- 
posing spears,  and  tramples  on  the  sharpened  spikes,  and 
springs  into  the  midst  of  this  assembly,  and  throws  his 


378  PILLOWS  UNDER  THE  ARMS. 

arms  around  you,  and  begs  you  to  be  saved.  "Will  you 
shake  him  off?  Will  you  hurl  him  on  his  back?  Will 
you  trample  on  him,  putting  one  foot  on  his  holy  heart, 
and  the  other  on  his  mangled  brow,  and  from  the  corpse 
of  a  murdered  Christ  will  you  leap  into  woe?  Stop! 
Stop !  Stop  1  Jesus  came  to  save  you.  By  the  tears 
that  ran  down  his  scarred  cheek — by  the  blood  that  oozed 
from  his  whipped  back — by  the  sweat  of  agony  that  stood 
out  in  beads  upon  his  brow — by  the  dying  groan  which 
broke  the  heart  of  the  rocks,  and  made  the  sun  faint  dead 
away  in  the  heavens  —  1  beg  you  to  accept  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  and  be  saved.  Oh,  fling  not  away  3-our  im- 
mortal soul,  when  so  much  has  been  done  to  ransom  it! 
When  you  may  be  saved,  why  will  you  be  lost?  Some 
one  suggested  to  me  yesterday  that  there  were  some  per- 
sons who  consoled  themselves  by  saying,  "If  I  am  to  be 
lost,  there  will  be  a  great  many  others  with  me,  so  I  won't 
care  so  much,"     Oh,  what  poor  philosophy! 

When  the  Lake  Shore  Eailroad  cars  went  off  the  track 
a  year  or  two  ago,  and  a  hundred  and  fifty  people  were 
crushed,  was  it  any  mitigation  of  the  sorrow  that  there 
were  a  hundred  and  fifty  instead  of  one  man  ?  When, 
three  years  ago,  five  hundred  miles  off  Newfoundland,  we 
thought  our  ship  was  making  the  last  plunge,  did  the 
screams  of  seven  hundred  frenzied  passengers  mitigate  the 
horror  of  that  night?  Oh  no.  If  there  is  any  man  deter- 
mined to  be  lost,  better  be  lost  alone  than  in  a  crowd ; 
their  sorrow  added  to  your  sorrow,  their  disaster  added  to 
your  disaster.  I  can  not  believe  that  there  are  any  in  this 
house  who  will  be  such  fools  as  to  reject  the  only  salvation 
offered  them  this  day  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
the  infinite  Redeemer.     I  do  not  know  whether  my  cheek 


PILLOWS   UNDER   THE  ARMS.  379 

turns  pale  at  the  tliouglil;  Lut  I  do  know  that  my  heart 
quakes  as  I  cry  out  with  Isaiah,  "Who  among  us  can 
dwell  in  devouring  fire  ?  Who  of  us  can  lie  down  in  eter- 
nal burnings?" 

Men  and  women!  there  is  only  one  name  given  under 
heaven  among  men  whereby  you  may  be  saved,  and  that 
is  Jesus.  "  God  so  loved  the  world,  that  he  gave  his  only 
begotten  Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  in  him  should  not 
perish,  but  have  everlasting  life."  Depend  upon  it,  if  you 
are  lost  it  will  not  be  God's  fault.  He  has  done  every 
thing  to  save  you.  It  will  not  be  Christ's  fault.  He  has 
pleaded  with  blood-red  earnestness  for  your  salvation.  It 
will  not  be  the  Holy  Spirit's  fault.  He  has  this  day  stirred 
and  entreated  you  mightily.  If  you  are  lost,  it  will  be 
your  own  fault.  You  will  foi'ge  your  own  chains.  You 
will  write  your  own  death-warrant.  You  will  bolt  and 
bar  the  door  of  heaven,  and  doubly  bolt  it  and  doubly  bar 
it  against  3'our  own  soul ;  and  you  might  as  well  this  da}'', 
if  that  is  your  determination,  make  your  valedictory,  say- 
ing: "Farewell,  0  Church  of  God!  I  don't  want  the  com- 
fort of  your  sacraments.  Farewell,  O  Holy  Bible!  I  don't 
want  your  illumination.  Farewell,  O  Holy  Ghost!  bother 
me  no  more  about  the  great  future.  Farewell,  0  heaven ! 
I  don't  want  to  hear  thy  clapping  cymbals,  nor  to  mingle 
in  thy  hallelujahs.  Farewell,  0  my  glorified  kindred!  fa- 
ther, mother,  sister,  brother,  and  my  dear  children  who 
broke  my  heart  when  they  went  away  from  me.  Farewell ! 
Keep  no  longer  a  seat  for  me  by  your  side  at  the  heaven- 
ly banquet.  I  am  not  coming.  I  take  another  road.  I 
make  another  choice.  Across  these  spaces  I  fling  this  kiss 
of  everlasting  separation.  Good-bye,  good-bye.  This  is 
my  eternal  valedictory !" 


580  WHAT  KILLS  MINISTERS. 


WHAT  KILLS  MINISTERS* 

"Thou  wilt  surely  wear  iiway,  both  thou,  and  this  people  that  is  with 
thee :  for  this  tiling  is  too  heavy  for  thee ;  thou  art  not  able  to  perform  it 
thyself  alone. " — Exodus  xviii.,  18. 

JETHRO  was  paying  a  visit  to  Lis  son  in-law,  Moses. 
The  tent  is  lighted,  and  swarming  with  a  glad  levee. 
Until  very  late  at  night  I  see  the  swinging  of  the  lanterns, 
and  the  glancing  in  and  out  of  the  guests.  Good  cheer,  re- 
cital of  stirring  experiences,  accounts  of  what  they  have 
done  and  what  God  has  done,  and  innocent  conviviality 
characterize  the  occasion.  In  the  morning  Moses  sits  down 
to  listen  to  all  the  people  have  to  say  by  way  of  complaint 
or  appeal.  He  stands  between  them  and  God.  It  is  talk, 
talk,  talk  all  day  long.  From  morning  till  night  Moses  is 
listening,  planning,  counseling,  praying,  preaching.  Jethro 
gets  alarmed  about  his  son-in-law's  health.  "  Why,"  he 
says,  "  this  thing  will  wear  you  out.  These  people  and 
this  work  will  exhaust  you.  Why  don't  you  divide  up 
the  labors  and  the  burdens  among  other  people?  Thou 
wilt  surely  wear  away,  both  thou,  and  this  people  that  is 
with  thee:  for  this  thing  is  too  heavy  for  thee."  Moses 
takes  the  advice  of  his  father-in-law,  and  calls  around  him 
some  of  the  best  men  he  can  find  as  assistants,  and,  instead 
of  being  worn  out  witb  his  labors,  lives  one  hundred  and 
twenty  years — as  long  as  any  man  ought  to  want  to  live 

*  Sixth  anniversary  sermon. 


}yiLiT  KILLS  MINISTERS.  381 

in  this  world,  -which  was  intended  only  as  a  stepping-stone 
to  something  brighter. 

Jethro's  warning  to  his  son-in-law  is  just  as  appropriate 
now  for  all  religious  pastors,  teachers,  and  Christian  work- 
ers. You  know  very  well  that  all  Christendom  is  strewed 
with  worn-out  ministers  of  the  Gospel.  Some  of  them  went 
down  under  brain -softening,  others  under  throat  disease, 
others  under  paralysis,  others  under  nervous  derangement 
and  disorganization. 

What  is  killing  so  many  ministers?  Sometimes  they 
are  destroyed  through  excessive  use  of  tobacco,  sometimes 
through  culpable  neglect  of  physical  exercise,  sometimes 
through  reckless  exposure ;  but  I  think  that,  in  the  vast 
majority  of  cases,  it  is  through  lack  of  sympathy  and  help 
on  the  part  of  their  congregations.  Thousands  of  these 
pastors  are  wori'ied  to  death  by  insufficient  salary,  and 
pulled  apart  by  unreasonable  demands,  and  rung  out  of 
life  by  the  tintinnabulation  of  their  door-bell,  and  exhaust- 
ed with  perpetual  interruptions.  Now,  my  text  suggests 
that  no  man  can  do  every  thing.  If  a  minister  of  the  Gos- 
pel has  on  one  shoulder  the  spiritual  affii.irs  of  a  church, 
and  on  the  other  shoulder  the  financial  affiiirs  of  a  churcli, 
liis  feet  are  on  the  margin  of  an  open  grave,  clear  to  the 
bottom  of  which  he  can  look  without  moving.  Let  all 
ministers  of  the  Gospel,  so  far  as  possible,  gather  around 
them  sympathetic  men  and  women  upon  whom  they  can 
throw  much  of  the  care  and  responsibility  and  trouble. 
"Thou  wilt  surely  wear  away,  both  thou,  and  this  people 
that  is  with  thee  :  for  this  thing  is  too  heavy  for  thee ;  thou 
art  not  able  to  perform  it  th^'self  alone." 

Standing  before  you  this  morning,  preaching  my  sixth 
anniversary  sermon  as  your  pastor — a  style  of  sermon  in 


382  WHAT  KILLS  MINISTERS. 

whicli  the  preacher  is  generally  expected  to  be  more  than 
usually  personal — I  have  to  tell  3-ou  that  the  burdens  of  life 
are  getting  to  me  less  and  less,  and  that  as  the  years  pass 
on  I  have  fewer  and  still  fewer  anxieties.  In  beautiful 
Belleville,  on  the  banks  of  the  Passaic,  where  I  began  my 
Christian  ministry,  it  seemed  as  if  all  the  work  came  down 
on  my  young  shoulders.  Going  to  the  West,  the  field  was 
larger  and  the  care  less.  Going  to  Philadelphia,  the  field 
was  still  larger  and  the  care  still  less.  And  standing  to-day, 
as  I  do,  among  hundreds  of  warm  personal  friends,  whose 
hands  and  feet  and  hearts  are  all  willing  to  help,  I  have 
less  anxiety  than  I  ever  had.  I  have  taken  the  advice  of 
Jethro  in  the  text,  and  have  gathered  around  me  a  great 
many  with  whom  I  expect  to  divide  all  the  care  and  the 
responsibility  ;  and  though  sometimes,  what  with  the  con- 
duct of  this  church,  where  we  have  a  perpetual  religious 
awakening,  and  the  conduct  of  a  religious  weekly  newspa- 
per, and  the  conduct  of  the  Lay  College,  people  have  often 
addressed  me  in  words  similar  to  those  of  my  text,  saying, 
"  Thou  wilt  surely  wear  away :  this  thing  is  too  heavy  for 
thee,"  I  am  glad  to  know  that  this  morning  I  am  in  perfect 
health,  and  ready  to  recount  to  you  what  the  Loi'd  has 
been  doing  in  all  these  days  of  our  sojourn  together,  be- 
tween 1869  and  1875. 

It  is  now  six  years  since  I  preached  to  you  my  opening 
sermon,  on  the  text,  "God  is  love."  I  wish  I  could  pour 
out  my  soul  this  morning  in  a  doxology  of  praise  to  God, 
and  of  gratitude  to  this  people.  The  difference  between 
these  years  has  been  that  the  second  was  to  me  happier 
than  the  first,  and  the  third  than  the  second,  and  the  fourth 
than  the  third,  and  the  fifth  than  the  fourth,  and  the  sixth 
than  the  fifth.     God  has  led  us  through  many  vicissitudea 


WHAT  KILLS  MINISTERS.  383 

We  are  in  the  third  church  in  six  years.  Crowded  out  of 
the  first,  burned  out  of  the  second,  by  the  mercy  of  God 
led  into  the  third. 

We  look  back  to  the  solitary  service  six  years  ago  in 
the  old  chapel,  with  a  congregation  that  almost  could  be 
accommodated  on  this  platform.  For  many  years  the 
church  had  been  in  strife,  until  the  three  or  four  parties 
had  exterminated  each  other,  leaving  an  expanse  of  empty 
pews,  a  wheezy  organ,  a  crampcd-up  pulpit,  and  a  steeple 
the  laughing-stock  of  the  town.  My  personal  friends  ap- 
plied to  me  an  emphatic  word  of  four  letters,  and  two  let- 
ters alike,  in  expressing  my  folly  in  undertaking  this  en- 
terprise. Indeed,  it  seemed  heavier  than  to  start  entirely 
new,  for  there  were  wide-spread  prejudices  in  regard  to  the 
church.  Still  we  went  on.  By  the  blessing  of  God,  in 
three  or  four  weeks  our  church  was  full ;  and  it  is  aston- 
ishing how  well  an  old  building  looks  when  it  is  all  occu- 
pied, for  there  is  no  power  in  graceful  arch,  or  in  carved 
pillar,  or  in  exquisite  fresco  to  adorn  a  place  like  an  audi- 
ence of  beaming  countenances.  I  had  rather  preach  in  a 
full  barn  than  in  a  sparsely  attended  cathedral.  Empty 
pews  are  non-conductors  of  Gospel  electricity.  People 
came  in  from  all  ranks  and  conditions ;  and,  looking  over 
the  audience  to-day,  I  can  not  see  more  than  four  or  five 
families  who  were  with  us  six  years  ago.  Some  of  them 
have  been  advanced  into  the  better  society  of  heaven,  while 
some  of  them  dropped  off  because  they  thought  we  were 
going  too  fast,  and  they  could  not  keep  up.  We  went 
on  gathering  the  people  in  from  all  directions,  until  we 
have  here  to-day  the  rich  and  the  poor,  the  wise  and  the 
ignorant;  those  who  toil  with  pen,  with  printing-press, 
with  yard-stick,  and  with  hammer.     Enough  physicians— 


884  WHAT  KILLS  MINISTERS. 

allopathic,  homeopathic,  hydropathic,  and  eclectic — to  treat 
us  in  all  our  disorders.  Enough  lawyers  to  defend  us  in 
all  our  legal  contests.  Enough  artists  to  cover  our  walls 
with  pictures.  Enough  merchants  to  give  us  the  necessary 
fabrics,  whether  foreign  or  domestic.  Enough  mechanics 
to  build  and  polish  and  make  comfortable  for  us  our  resi- 
dences. And  I  will  say  that  never  did  there  come  togeth- 
er in  one  church  a  crowd  of  more  genial,  intelligent,  sym- 
pathetic, enthusiastic,  and  warm-hearted  Christian  people 
than  those  which  assemble  here.  We  are  all  of  one  mind 
and  heart.  We  cordially  greet  all  who  come,  and  give  a 
godspeed  to  those  who  go.  When  any  body  does  not  like 
the  music,  or  the  preaching,  or  the  plan  on  which  our 
church  is  conducted,  we  say  "Good-bye"  as  cheerfully  as 
when  he  came  we  said  "  IIow  do  you  do?"  This  church 
is  now  so  large  that,  if  a  man  wants  to  make  trouble,  such 
a  small  proportion  hear  of  it  that  he  soon  gives  up  the  un- 
dertaking as  a  dead  failure. 

We  are  all  new  together.  We  tarried  long  enough  in 
the  old  Tabernacle  to  learn  how  to  conduct  a  larger  church. 
Then,  when  it  was  time  for  us  to  graduate  from  that,  we 
got  our  diploma  in  red  scroll  of  flame,  signed,  sealed,  and 
delivered  on  one  cold  December  day  in  1872.  When 
that  conflagration  took  place,  through  inadequate  insurance 
consequent  upon  the  style  of  material  of  which  the  old 
building  was  constructed,  we  lost  every  thing  save  our 
faith  in  God  and  our  determination  to  go  ahead.  We  tar- 
ried in  the  Academy  of  Music  long  enough  to  gather  up 
hundreds  of  the  best  families  of  our  congregation  who  are 
worshiping  with  us  to-day,  and  to  get  a  baptism  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  such  as  never  descended  on  any  church  on 
this  continent.     We  came  into  this  building  with  the  bless- 


WHAT  KILLS  MINISTERS.  885 

ing  of  God,  and  with  the  blessing  of  all  denominations  of 
Christians  in  this  land  and  in  Great  Britain ;  and  since  we 
have  been  here  the  Lord  has  mightily  blessed  us,  pouring 
out  his  Spirit  from  Sabbath  to  Sabbath,  so  that  I  can  ask 
you,  well  knowing  what  your  answer  will  be,  whether 
you  have  made  any  too  great  sacrifices  for  Christ  and  his 
kingdom? 

During  these  six  years  the  Lord  has  sorely  tried  us ;  in  the 
first  place,  by  calling  us  to  build  a  church  with  a  new  con- 
gregation that  had  not  at  all  been  consolidated;  then  by 
the  demolition  of  that  building;  then  by  taking  us  a  mile 
off  from  the  centre  of  our  congregation,  to  worship  in  an- 
other building;  then  by  the  almost  superhuman  effort  of 
putting  up  this  building  during  a  financial  depression  such 
as  never  before  afflicted  this  century.  If  God  had  not 
helped  the  architect,  and  helped  the  trustees,  and  helped 
the  people,  we  should  have  perished  in  the  undertaking. 
And  while  I  wish  to-day  to  recognize  the  indomitable  per- 
severance and  sacrifices  of  the  congregation,  I  must  say,  to 
God  belongs  the  glory.  He  planned  this  structure,  making 
it  perfect  in  acoustics;  raising  money  for  the  building  out 
of  the  very  jaws  of  a  national  panic ;  filling  the  house  with 
worshipers.  Oh,  let  us  praise  him  now,  and  let  us  praise 
him  forever.  I  say  you  are  not  sorry  for  any  of  the  sacri- 
fices or  toils  through  which  you  have  gone.  We  have  had 
so  perpetually  the  blessing  of  God  in  this  church,  that  it 
excites  no  remark  when  from  a  single  service  hundreds  of 
souls  step  out  into  the  kingdom  of  Jesus.  There  are  ia 
almost  all  the  towns  and  cities  of  this  country  those  resi- 
dents who  in  this  building  first  woke  up  to  their  spiritual 
necessities.  Letters  come  from  North  and  South,  and  East 
and  West,  from  the  Canadas  and  from  both  sides  the  sea, 

17 


386  WHAT  KILLS  MINISTEMS. 

tolling  me  of  this  fact.  Ola  that  to-daj  we  might  make  some 
fitting  expression  to  the  Lord !  Shall  it  be  in  carved  words 
upon  the  pillars?  Shall  it  be  in  wreaths  upon  the  wall? 
Shall  it  be  in  the  organ's  open  diapason?  All  that  is  well; 
but  rather  let  it  be  that  our  hearts  shall  rise  to  God  in  an 
intense  and  all-conquering  acclamation  of  thanksgiving. 

We  are  trying  here  to  maintain  a  well-halanced  churchy 
and  for  that  reason  we  have  in  all  departments  of  Christian 
service  the  old  and  the  young.  It  is  a  bad  thing  for  a 
church  when  the  old  people  have  all  the  management,  or 
when  the  young  people  have  all  the  management.  In  the 
one  case  the  church  will  go  too  slow,  in  the  other  it  will 
go  too  fast.  We  want  the  fast  men  to  keep  the  slow  men 
from  going  too  slow,  and  the  slow  men  to  keep  the  fast 
people  from  going  too  fast.  Here  are  many  of  the  aged. 
They  have  come  down  to  us  from  another  day.  Not  on 
their  brow  the  snows  of  many  winters,  as  people  often  say, 
but  the  white  crocuses  of  an  everlasting  spring-time  into 
which  they  are  about  to  blossom.  And  how  many  of  the 
young  coming  to  us  Sabbath  by  Sabbath  1  We  want  them 
all  equipped  for  God.  We  want  them  for  flying  artillery 
in  a  double-quick  march.  When  there  is  astorming-party 
to  be  made  up,  we  want  to  wheel  them  into  line — old  men 
for  counsel,  young  men  for  action. 

We  are  also  trying  to  maintain  a  musical  church.  We 
have  an  inborn  antipathy  to  any  thing  like  stilted  and  pre- 
cise song  in  the  house  of  God.  We  like  oratorios,  orches- 
tras, concerts,  and  prima -donnas  in  their  places;  but  we 
want  vociferous  singing  in  the  house  of  the  Lord.  David 
cries  out,  "Sing  aloud  unto  God."  In  other  words,  do  not 
hum  it  or  mumble  it.  Oh  for  an  anthem  strong  enough 
to  surge  this  whole  audience  on  the  beach  of  heaven  I    Per- 


WHAT  KILLS  MINISTERS.  387 

suadcd  that  wc  could  not  do  the  work  so  well  by  the  use 
of  a  choir,  we  have  called  into  the  service  of  the  church 
two  Bible  instruments — the  organ  and  the  cornet,  and  so 
the  music  of  the  church  has  been  sustained  and  led  and  de- 
veloped. Oh,  what  grand  and  glorious  singing  we  have 
had  during  the  past  years;  even  people  who  had  bronchi- 
tis forgetting  their  infirmity,  and  lifting  aloud  their  voice 
before  God;  people  who  could  not  sing  a  note  opening 
their  mouth  reckless  as  to  what  kind  of  a  sound  came  out 
of  it.  But  the  little  discord  is  overwhelmed  in  the  great 
symphony — a  chip  drowned  in  the  rush  of  great  waters. 
And  yet  we  feel  this  morning  that  we  have  not  done  what 
we  might,  or  ought,  or  will  do,  in  this  department  of  Chris- 
tian service.  We  want  more  heart  under  it,  more  soul 
flung  into  it.  We  want  the  whole  audience  roused  up  to 
the  sound  of  jubilee.  We  want  the  people  to  come  from 
their  homes  on  the  Sabbath  with  hymn-books,  and  after 
the  preacher  shall  announce  the  hymn,  we  want  them  to 
find  the  right  page,  and  clear  their  throats,  and  at  the  first 
throb  of  the  cornet  on  the  air  stretch  themselves  up  to  the 
magnificence  and  glory  of  this  exercise.  History  tells  us 
of  a  shout  that  the  Persian  host  lifted  so  loud  that  the 
eagles  that  were  flying  through  the  air  were  stunned,  and 
dropped  to  the  earth.  Oh  that  there  might  go  up  such  a 
congregational  anthem  from  this  house  of  the  Lord  as  shall 
make  all  heaven  drop  in  blessing  on  our  souls.  I  take 
partly  the  words  of  the  Bible,  and  partly  my  own  words, 
and  say,  "  Why  are  ye  so  slack  to  go  up  and  possess  the 
orchards  and  the  vineyards  and  the  mountains  of  sacred 
song?"  Oh  that  the  music  of  heaven  and  earth  might  join 
midway  the  arches,  liise,  0  song  of  earth !  Descend,  0 
song  of  heaven  I 


388  WHAT  KILLS  IfLXLSTFES. 

Still  further,  ive  are  trymg  to  maintain  in  tins  place  a 
church  aggressive  and  revolutionary.     Why  build  or  main- 
tain any  other  church  in  this  City  of  Churches,  where  there 
are  enough  to  accommodate  all  the  people  who  are  disposed 
to  go  to  the  house  of  God  on  the  Sabbath,  and  perhaps 
more  than  enough  ?    If  you  have  nothing  particular,  noth- 
ing unique,  nothing  different,  then  what  a  waste  of  bricks 
and  brawn  and  brain.     But  we  have  an  idea  of  a  church. 
We  have  built  this  house  of  God  as  a  place  where  we  mean 
to  bombard  iniquity.     We  want  to  smash  sin,  without  any 
apology  for  smashing  it.    We  have  started  in  this  line,  and 
we  mean  to  keep  on,  and  study  to  be  as  well  pleased  with 
curses  as  blessings  from  the  people.     If  there  are  any  of 
3'ou  who  do  not  like  to  go  to  a  church  which  is  assaulted 
of  many  newspapers  and  of  the  outside  world,  who  can  not 
understand  its  policies  and  its  principles,  stand  clear  of  this 
church!     We  mean  until  the  day  of  our  death,  and  for  a 
few  days  after,  to  keep  society  stirred  up  by  the  discussion 
of  themes  vital  to  its  interests,  and  vital  to  the  interests  of 
the  immortal  soul.     During  the  past  six  months  theatrical 
people  have  been  after  us,  and  the  Spiritualists  have  been 
after  us,  and  the  Unitarians  have  been  after  us,  and  the 
Universalists  have  been  after  us — one  of  their  prominent 
men  recently  saying  that  he  did  not  think  there  would  be 
any  hell  except  for  one  man,  and  that  the  pastor  of  the 
Brooklyn  Tabernacle!     But  still  we  shall  go  on,  as  God 
gives  us  strength  and  health  and  spirit  to  do  his  will.    We 
have  only  taken,  as  it  were,  the  outside  casement  of  this 
great  rampart  of  iniquity.     On  !  on  !     "If  God  be  for  us, 
who  can  be  against  us?" 

Still  further,  we  are  trying  here  to  inaintain  a  generous 
church.     We  have  as  a  church  been  able  to  do  but  little 


WHAT  KILLS  3fLyiSTEIiS.  389 

for  outside  charities,  for  the  reason  that  we  have  been  all 
the  time  building  churches  or  enlarging  them.  But  we  are 
trying  to  maintain  an  organism  on  the  voluntary  principla 
We  believe  that  a  church  can  be  educated  up  to  the  duty 
and  the  joy  of  giving.  We  put  no  premium  on  financird 
meanness.  We  believe  that  people  ought  to  give  to  the 
cause  of  God  every  farthing  they  can  possibly  give.  More- 
over, we  believe  that  all  can  give  something,  and  that  the 
vast  majority  of  the  people  could  give  more  in  our  church- 
es than  they  do,  and  be  better  off".  We  believe  that  the 
grandest  investment  a  man  ever  makes,  for  this  world  or 
the  world  to  come,  is  what  he  gives  to  the  Church  of  God, 
since  Christ  pays  him  back  fivefold,  tenfold,  twentyfold,  fif- 
lyfold,  a  hundredfold.  In  other  words,  we  believe  that  a 
man  is  better  ofi'  in  this  world  if  he  is  generous,  and  well 
off  just  in  proportion  as  he  is  generous;  and  we  believe 
that  those  people  who  give  the  most  in  proportion  to  their 
means  will  after  a  while  have  the  finest  houses  on  earth, 
and  the  grandest  mansions  in  heaven.  The  stingy  people 
keep  poor,  the  generous  get  rich,  as  a  general  rule.  It  is 
the  old  principle  of  the  Bible:  "Cast  thy  bread  upon  the 
waters,  for  thou  shalt  find  it  after  many  days." 

So  I  believe  if  a  man  takes  the  old  Bible  principle,  and 
gives  one-tenth  of  all  his  income  to  the  cause  of  God,  he 
has  an  insurance  of  prosperity  such  as  the  signature  of  the 
Bank  of  England  can  not  give  him.  I  believe  our  congre- 
gation will  3'et  rise  up  to  the  positive  rapture  of  giving. 
We  believe  that  men  can  be  so  built  on  a  large  scale  of 
heart,  that  they  will  look  over  their  property  and  then  say, 
"  I  will  give  so  much  toward  my  spiritual  culture.  I  will 
give  so  much  toward  the  spiritual  culture  of  my  wife.  I 
will  give  so  much  toward  the  spiritual  culture  of  my  chil- 


890  WHAT  KILLS  MINISTERS. 

dren.  I  will  give  so  much  toward  the  spiritual  culture  of 
the  men  who  have  little  or  no  means.  How  small  it  seems, 
this  that  I  am  giving  to  Christ,  who  gave  every  thing  to 
me!  I  wish  it  were  five  hundred  thousand  times  more." 
Yes,  we  believe  that  the  time  will  come  when  people  will 
be  so  educated  in  this  matter  of  Christian  generosity,  that 
instead  of  deciding  by  what  other  people  give,  or  what 
people  give  in  other  churches,  they  shall  give  according  to 
their  own  appreciation  of  the  height,  and  depth,  and  length, 
and  breadth,  and  infinity  of  their  spiritual  advantages.  Do 
yon  not  wish  you  had  given  that  three  thousand  dollars  to 
the  cause  of  Christ  that  went  down  in  Northern  Pacific 
bonds  ? 

I  believe  the  time  will  come  in  the  Church  when  the 
passing  of  a  contribution  plate  or  a  subscription  paper 
will  kindle  up  the  faces  of  the  people  as  by  the  illumination 
of  a  great  satisfaction.  But  now  how  many  of  us  begrudge 
the  few  dollars  we  give  to  the  Lord,  and  only  give  when 
we  seem  to  be  compelled  to  give,  and  so  keep  ourselves  poor 
at  the  store,  and  rob  ourselves  of  eternal  dividends !  Under 
the  old  dispensation,  as  I  intimated,  the  people  gave  one- 
tenth  of  their  property  to  the  Lord,  but  that  was  a  far  infe- 
rior dispensation  to  the  one  we  have.  And  yet  how  few 
in  this  day  who  receive  a  thousand  dollars  a  year  give  a 
hundred  to  God !  how  few  who  receive  five  thousand  give 
five  hundred  to  God !  how  few  who  receive  a  hundred 
thousand  give  ten  thousand  to  God !  Those  Jews,  under 
their  dark  dispensation,  gave  one-tenth  for  a  mere  taper  of 
spiritual  life  and  light,  while  we  do  not  give  as  much  as 
that,  though  we  have  noonday  radiating  the  hemisphere. 
I  really  think  that  if  those  old  Jews  gave  one -tenth  for 
their  half-and-half  advantages,  we  ought  to  give  one-fifth 


WBAT  KILLS  MIXISTERS.  391 

for  the  glorious  privileges  wbicb  God  in  this  day  Las  be- 
stowed upon  us. 

We  talk  a  great  deal  about  the  evangelization  of  this 
world  and  the  salvation  of  men;  but  there  is  more  talk 
than  contribution  ;  and  I  do  not  believe  that  the  prayer  of 
a  man  for  the  salvation  of  this  world  ever  amounts  to  any 
thing  unless  he,  by  his  own  generosity,  shows  that  he  is  in 
earnest  in  the  matter.  I  like  the  style  of  Elias  Van  Ben- 
schoten,  the  old  man  who  came  into  a  meeting  of  the  Gen- 
eral Synod  of  the  Reformed  Church  in  1814,  and,  after  there 
had  been  a  great  many  long  and  brilliant  speeches  made 
about  the  education  of  young  men  to  the  ministry,  got  up, 
and  said  he  would  like  to  speak.  The  people  looked  cha- 
grined. They  thought  to  themselves,  "He  can't  speak." 
He  said,  "Mr.  President,  I  will  give  eight  hundred  and 
forty  dollars  in  cash  toward  that  object,  and  thirteen  thou- 
sand dollars  in  bonds,"  and  then  sat  down. 

While  the  theory  is  abroad  in  many  of  the  churches  that 
men  give  only  as  they  are  compelled  to  give,  I  believe  that 
the  people  can  be  educated  up  to  a  grand  and  glorious  vol- 
untary contribution  for  the  support  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus; 
but  I  can  not  make  the  people  believe  this  without  your 
help,  lienieinber  the  words  of  Jethro  to  his  son-in-law. 
Come,  let  us  all  rally  in  this  one  respect,  and  try  partly  to 
pay  God  for  our  Bibles,  for  our  churches,  for  our  families, 
for  our  hopes  of  heaven.  If  we  do  not  carry  out  this  prin- 
ciple, there  will  come  up,  after  a  while,  a  stronger  genera- 
tion to  execute  this  commission  of  Christ,  and  then  they 
will  look  back  and  say,  "Ah,  what  a  shriveled-up  minister 
and  people  that  must  have  been  in  the  Brooklyn  Taberna- 
cle in  1875!  When  the  Lord  opened  before  them  an  op- 
portunity of  carrying  out  a  Gospel  principle,  they  had  not 


392  WHAT  KILLS  MINISTERS. 

the  courage  to  carry  it  out."  I  do  not  expect  to  bother 
this  world  much  after  I  go  out  of  it,  but  I  must  start  the 
suspicion  that  if  ever  the  auctioneer's  hammer  cracks  on 
the  back  of  one  of  these  pews,  it  will  wake  me  up  quicker 
than  the  prophet  Samuel  was  awakened  by  the  Witch  of 
En-dor. 

Still  further,  we  are  here  trying  to  build,  and  organize, 
and  keep  up  a  soul-saving  churcJi.  I  mention  this  last  be- 
cause it  is  first.  "And  the  first  shall  be  last."  I  have  by 
argument,  and  illustration,  and  caricature,  in  these  last  six 
years  tried  to  create  in  your  soul  an  unutterable  disgust  for 
much  of  the  religion  of  this  day,  and  to  lead  you  back,  so 
far  as  God  gave  me  strength  to  do  it,  to  the  old  religion  of 
Jesus  Christ  and  his  apostles.  I  have  tried  to  show  you 
that  the  meanest  cant  in  all  the  world  is  the  cant  of  skep- 
ticism, and  that  you  ought  to  stop  apologizing  for  Chris- 
tianity, since  it  is  the  duty  of  those  who  do  not  believe  in 
Christianity  to  apologize  to  you  ;  and  that  the  biggest  vil- 
lains in  the  universe  are  those  who  want  to  rob  us  of  that 
grand  old  Bible  ;  and  that  there  is  one  idea  in  a  church  that 
ought  to  swallow  up  all  other  ideas,  and  that  is  the  soul- 
saving  idea.  "But,"  you  say,  "are  you  not  going  to  pay 
any  attention  to  those  who  have  entered  into  the  kingdom 
of  God,  and  have  really  become  Christians?"  My  theory 
is,  the  way  to  develop  a  man  for  this  world  and  for  the 
world  to  come  is  to  throw  him  chin -deep  in  Christian 
work;  and  if,  after  a  man  has  been  drawn  out  of  the  mire 
of  his  sin  on  to  the  "  Eock  of  Ages,"  he  wants  to  jump 
back,  then  he  will  have  to  jump ;  I  am  not  going  to  stand 
and  watch  him.  I  believe  the  great  work  of  the  Christian 
Churcli  is  to  bring  men  out  of  their  sin  into  the  hope  and 
the  joys  of  Christ's  salvation ;  and  then  if,  with  all  the  ad- 


WHAT  KILLS  MINISTERS.  893 

vantages  of  this  ccntun',  with  open  Bible,  and  the  constant 
plying  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  a  man  can  not  grow  in  grace,  he 
is  not  worth  a  great  deal  of  culture. 

We  want  this  a  church  set  apart  for  the  one  grand  object 
of  biinging  men  out  of  their  sin  into  hope  of  the  Gospel. 
There  will,  in  this  coming  year,  be  two  hundred  thousand 
strangers  who  will  be  seated  within  these  gates.  IIow 
many  of  them  will  you  bring  to  Christ  by  your  prayers 
and  your  personal  solicitations?  Will  you  bring  a  score, 
or  will  it  be  a  hundred  or  a  thousand?  I  must  tell  you 
that,  compared  with  this  work  of  saving  immortal  souls,  all 
other  work  is  cold  and  stale  and  insipid.  To  this  one  work, 
God  helping  me,  I  consecrate  the  remaining  days  and  years 
of  my  life,  and  I  ask  you  to  join  with  me  in  this  crusade 
for  the  redemption  of  immortal  souls. 

Now,  can  it  be  possible  that  six  years  of  my  pastorate 
have  passed  away  never  to  return?  How  many  squander- 
ed days  and  years — squandered  by  you  and  by  me!  God 
forgive  us  for  the  past,  and  help  us  to  be  more  faithful  for 
the  future.  Through  what  a  variety  of  scenes  we  have 
gone!  I  have  stood  by  you  in  times  of  sickness,  and  by 
the  graves  of  3'our  dead.  When  you  came  back  from  ex- 
hausting sickness  that  we  feared  would  be  fatal,  I  praised 
God  that  the  color  came  to  your  cheek  and  the  spring  to 
your  step.  And  some  of  you  in  the  past  six  years  have 
passed  through  dire  bereavements.  How  few  of  the  fami- 
lies of  my  congregation  have  not  been  invaded!  How 
many  of  the  old  people  have  gone,  in  the  last  two  or  three 
years!  They  went  away  so  gently  that  they  had  ended 
the  second  or  third  stanza  in  eternal  glory  before  3'ou 
knew  they  were  gone.  And,  oh,  how  many  of  the  bright, 
dear  children  have  gone — the  very  darlings  of  your  heart  I 

17* 


394  WffAT  KILLS  MINISTERS. 

You  tried  to  hold  on  to  them  with  your  stout  arms,  and 
you  said,  "O  Lord,  spare  them.  I  can't  give  them  up;  I 
can't  give  them  up.  Let  me  keep  them  a  little  longer." 
But  the}'-  broke  away  fi-om  your  arms  into  the  light  of 
heaven.  It  seemed  as  if  Jesus  and  the  angels  were  deter- 
mined to  have  them  there  and  then. 

But  we  have  tried  to  make  this  church  a  comforting 
place  for  all  the  broken-hearted.  Oh,  how  many  of  them 
there  are!  We  have  tried  to  fill  the  song  and  the  sermon 
and  the  prayer  with  the  solace  of  God's  promises,  and  so  it 
shall  be  hereafter.  It  is  no  mere  theory  with  me.  I  have 
had  enough  trouble  of  my  own  to  know  how  to  comfoit 
those  who  are  desolate,  and  it  is  my  ambition  to  be  to  you 
a  son  of  consolation.  Standing  as  we  do  at  the  open  por- 
tals of  another  pastoral  year,  let  us  to-day  make  a  new  vow 
of  consecration.  Let  us  be  faithful  to  God  and  faithful  to 
each  other;  for  soon  we  must  part,  and  all  these  pleasant 
scenes  in  which  we  have  mingled  will  vanish  forever.  By 
the  throne  of  God,  our  work  all  done,  our  sorrows  all  end- 
ed, may  we  be  permitted  to  talk  over  the  solemn,  delight- 
ful, and  disciplinary  occurrences  of  this  my  sixth  pastoral 
year  in  Brooklyn. 


THE  SUPERHUMAN  JESUS.  395 


THE  SUPERHUMAN  JESUS. 

"Christ  came,  who  is  over  all,  God  blessed  forever.  Amen." — 22o- 
nians  ix.,  5. 

3AUL  was  a  reckless  man  in  alwa3^s  telling  the  whole 
truth.  It  mattered  not  who  it  hit,  or  what  theological 
system  it  upset.  In  this  one  sentence  he  makes  a  world 
of  trouble  for  all  Arians  and  Socinians,  and  gives  a  cud 
for  skepticism  to  chew  on  for  the  next  thousand  years. 
"We  must  proceed  skillfully  to  twist  this  passage  of  Script- 
ure, or  we  shall  have  to  admit  the  Deity  of  Jesus  Christ. 
I  roll  up  my  sleeves  for  the  work,  and  begin  by  saying, 
perhaps  this  is  a  wrong  version.  No ;  all  the  versions  agree 
— Syriac,  Ethiopic,  Latin,  Arabic.  Perhaps  this  word  God 
means  a  being  of  great  power,  but  not  the  Deity.  It  is 
"  God  over  all."  But  perhaps  this  word  God  refers  to  the 
first  person  of  the  Trinity — God  the  Father.  No;  it  is 
^^ Christ  came,  who  is  over  all,  God  blessed  forever.  Amen." 
Whichever  way  I  take  it,  and  when  I  turn  it  upside-down, 
and  when  I  try  to  read  it  in  every  possible  shape,  I  am 
compelled  to  leave  it  as  all  have  been  compelled  to  leave 
it  who  have  gone  before  me,  an  incontrovertible  proof  of 
the  eternal  and  magnificent  Godhead  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ.  "Christ  came,  who  is  over  all,  God  blessed  for- 
ever.    Amen." 

About  the  differences  between  the  evangelical  denomi- 
nations of  Christians  I  have  no  concern.  If  I  could  by 
the  turning-over  of  my  hand  decide  whether  finally  all  the 


o06  THE  SUPERHVMAIf  JESUS. 

world  shall  be  Methodists,  or  Baptists,  or  Episcopalians,  or 
CongregatioQalists,  or  Presbyterians,  I  would  not  turn  over 
my  hand ;  but  between  Unitarianism,  which  believes  the 
Deity  of  Christ,  and  Trinitarianisra,  which  argues  his  divine 
nature,  there  is  a  difference  as  wide  as  eternity.  If  Christ 
be  not  a  God,  then  we  are  base  idolaters.  If  Christ  be  God, 
then  those  who  deny  it  are  blasphemers.  To  that  Chris- 
tological  question  we  come  this  morning,  and  may  God 
help  us  to  do  right  in  a  question  where  mistake  is  infinite  I 

I  suppose  we  are  all  willing  to  take  the  Bible  as  our 
standard.  It  requires  as  much  faith  to  be  an  infidel  as  to 
be  a  Christian  ;  but  it  is  faith  in  a  different  direction.  The 
Christian  believes  in  the  statements  of  Moses,  and  Isaiah, 
and  David,  and  Matthew,  and  Mark,  and  Luke,  and  Paul. 
The  infidel  believes  in  the  statement  of  the  freethinkers. 
We  have  faith  in  one  class  of  men ;  they  have  faith  in  an- 
other class  of  men.  But  as  I  suppose  the  vast  majority  of 
the  people  in  the  audience  this  morning  are  willing  to  take 
the  Bible  as  their  guide  in  morals  and  religion,  I  shall  make 
this  book  my  starting-point. 

Ycu  mny  be  aware  that  the  two  great  generals  who 
have  marshaled  the  largest  army  of  Unitarian  troops  are 
Strauss  and  Kenan.  The  multitudes  of  the  slain  under 
them  will  never  be  counted  until  the  day  when  the  arch- 
angel sounds  the  roll-call  of  the  resurrection.  These  men, 
and  all  men  who  have  sympathy  with  them,  begin  by  at- 
tacking the  fortress  of  the  miracles.  They  know  that  when 
once  they  have  captured  that  fortress  Christianity  must 
surrender.  The  great  German  exegete  says  that  all  the 
miracles  are  myths.  The  great  French  exegete  says  that 
all  the  miracles  are  legends.  They  must  somehow  or  other 
explain  away  every  thing  supernatural  in  the  Bible — every 


THE  SUPERHUMAN  JESUS.  397 

thing  supernatural  in  the  life  of  Christ — though  to  accom- 
plish that  they  must  go  up  the  greatest  absurdity.  They 
prefer  the  miracles  of  human  nonsense  rather  than  the 
grand  miracles  of  Jesus  Christ.  They  say,  for  instance, 
that  the  miraculous  birth  of  Christ  was  a  myth,  just  as  it  is 
a  fanciful  idea  that  Romulus  was  born  of  Rhea  Silvia  and 
the  god  Mars.  They  say  that  Christ  did  not  feed  five  thou- 
sand with  a  few  loaves  of  bread  ;  that  is  only  a  myth  which 
got  mixed  up  with  the  distribution  of  twenty  loaves  among 
a  hundred  people  by  Elisha.  They  say  Christ  did  not 
turn  the  water  into  wine ;  that  was  only  an  improvement 
on  the  old  Egyptian  plague  by  which  water  was  turned 
into  blood.  They  say  no  star  pointed  down  to  the  manger 
where  Jesus  lay ;  that  was  only  the  flash  of  a  passing  lan- 
tern. They  say  that  Christ's  sweating  great  drops  of  blood 
in  Gethsemane  was  not  very  astonishing,  for  he  had  been 
exposed  to  the  night,  and  had  been  taken  suddenly  physic- 
ally ill.  They  say  no  tongues  of  fire  sat  on  the  heads  of 
the  disciples  at  the  Pentecost;  it  was  only  a  great  thunder- 
storm,, and  the  air  was  full  of  electricity,  and  it  snapped  and 
flew  all  around  about  the  heads  of  the  disciples.  They 
say  that  Mary,  and  Martha,  and  Lazarus,  and  Christ  made 
up  their  minds  it  was  necessary  to  get  up  an  excitement  in 
order  to  forward  their  religion,  and  so  they  resolved  to 
play  funeral,  and  Lazarus  consented  to  be  the  corpse,  and 
Mary  and  Martha  consented  to  be  mourners,  and  Christ 
consented  to  be  chief  operator.  I,  of  course,  put  it  in  my 
own  words,  but  state  accurately  their  meaning.  They  say 
that  the  four  Gospels  are  spurious,  written  by  superstitious 
or  lying  men,  and  that  they  were  backed  up  by  people  who 
were  to  die,  and  actually  did  die,  for  a  thing  they  did  not 
believe.     Now,  I  take  back  the  limited  remark  I  made  a 


398  THE  SUPERHUMAN  JESUS. 

moment  ago,  and  say  that  it  requires  a  thousandfold  more 
credulity  and  faith  to  be  an  infidel  than  to  be  a  Christian, 
and  that  if  Christianity  demands  that  the  whale  swallow 
Jonah,  then  skepticism  demands  that  Jonah  swallow  the 
whale. 

I  propose  this  morning  to  show  you,  so  far  as  the  Lord 
may  help  me,  that  Jesus  Christ  is  God.  I  shall  prove  it, 
first,  from  what  inspired  men  say  of  him  ;  then,  from  what 
he  said  of  himself;  then,  from  his  wonderful  achievements. 
*'  Get  a  good  fat  text  to  start  with,"  said  Dr.  Ludlow,  our 
grand  old  theological  professor.  If  I  never  had  such  a 
text  before,  I  have  one  this  morning  :  "  Christ  came,  who  is 
over  all,  God  blessed  forever.  Amen."  Not  over  Solo- 
mon's throne;  not  higher  than  David's  throne;  not  higher 
than  CffivSar's  ;  not  higher  than  the  Henrys',  than  the  Fred- 
ericks', than  the  Louis',  than  Napoleon's,  than  Victoria's? 
Oh  yes.  Gather  all  those  thrones  and  pile  them  up,  and 
my  text  overspans  them  as  easily  as  a  rainbow  spans  the 
mountain-top.  "Christ  came,  who  is  over  all,  God  blessed 
forever.     Amen." 

The  Bible  says,  "All  things  were  made  by  him."  Stop ! 
Does  not  that  prove  too  much  ?  He  did  not  make  the  Med- 
iterranean, did  he?  not  Mount  Lebanon?  not  the  Alps? 
not  Mount  Washington?  not  the  earth?  not  the  stars? 
not  the  universe  ?  Yes,  all  things  were  made  by  him. 
And,  lest  we  should  be  so  stupid  as  not  to  understand  it, 
the  apostle  concludes  by  saying,  "Without  him,  was  not 
any  thing  made  that  was  made."  Why,  then,  he  must  have 
been  K  God. 

The  Bible  says,  "At  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  every  knee 
shall  bow,  of  things  on  earth  and  things  in  heaven."  See 
all  heaven  coming  down  on  their  knees — martyrs  on  their 


THE  aUPERUUMAN  JEISUIS.  399 

knees,  apostles  on  their  knees,  confessors  on  their  knees,  the 
archangel  on  his  knees.  Before  whom  ?  A  man  ?  No,  a 
God. 

The  Bible  goes  on  to  say  that  "  every  tongue  shall  con- 
fess that  Jesus  Christ  is  Lord."  Malayan,  Bornesian,  Mex- 
ican, Persian,  Italian,  German,  Spanish,  French,  English — 
every  tongue  shall  confess  that  Jesus  Christ  is  Lord. 
He  must  be  a  God.  The  Bible  says,  "Jesus  Christ,  the 
same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever."  Men  change;  the 
body  changes  entirely  in  seven  years,  the  mind  changes,  the 
heart  changes;  but  "Christ  the  same  yesterday,  to-day, 
and  forever."     He  must  be  a  God. 

Philosophers  say  that  it  is  gravitation,  the  centripetal  and 
centrifugal  forces,  which  keep  the  worlds  from  clashing  and 
from  demolition ;  but  Paul  says  that  Christ's  arm  is  the 
axle  on  which  every  thing  turns,  and  that  his  hand  is  the 
socket  in  which  every  thing  is  set;  ^^ upholding  all  things 
by  the  word  of  his  power."     He  must  be  a  God. 

But  I  go  on,  in  the  next  place,  and  see  what  Christ  said 
of  himself.  Every  person  ought  to  know  more  about  him- 
self than  any  body  else  does.  If  I  ask  you  where  you 
were  born,  and  you  say,  "  I  was  born  in  Chester,  England, 
or  Dublin,  or  New  Orleans,"  I  would  believe  you.  Why? 
Because  you  ought  to  know ;  it  is  a  matter  that  pertains 
to  yourself.  If  I  asked  you  whether  you  can  lift  three  or 
four  hundred  pounds,  and  you  said  yes,  I  would  believe 
you.  You  ought  to  know.  If  I  ask  you  how  much  mon- 
ey you  have,  a  hundred  or  a  hundred  thousand  dollars, 
and  you  tell  me,  I  believe  you,  because  you,  being  an  hon- 
est man,  will  tell  me  truth.  Now,  I  ask  if  Christ  ought 
not  to  know  whether  or  not  lie  is  God?  I  ask  his  age. 
He  says,  in  so  many  words,  "  Before  Abraham  was,  I  am." 


400  THE  SUPEItHUMAN  JE&US. 

Abraham  bad  been  dead  two  thousand  and  twenty-eight 
years.  Was  Christ  two  thousand  and  twenty-eight  years 
old?  He  says  so.  In  Kevelation  he  says,  "I  am  Alpha;" 
Alpha  being  the  first  letter  of  the  Greek  alphabet,  it  was 
as  much  as  to  say,  "I  am  the  A  of  the  great  alphabet  of  all 
the  centuries."     Ought  not  he  to  know  ? 

Could  Christ  be  in  a  thousand  places  at  the  same  time? 
He  said  so.  He  intimates  that  he  can  be  in  Madras,  in 
Stockholm,  in  Pekin,  in  San  Francisco,  in  Constantinople, 
at  the  same  time.  "  Where  two  or  three  are  gathered  to- 
gether in  ray  name,  there  am  I  in  the  midst  of  them." 
This  faculty  of  every whereativeness,  is  it  a  human  or  a  Di- 
vine attribute?  Lest  we  should  think  that  this  power  of 
everywhereativeness  should  give  out,  Christ  intimates  that 
he  is  going  to  keep  on,  and  that  on  the  day  before  the 
world  is  burned  up,  he  will  be  in  all  the  prayer-meetings 
in  Europe  and  Africa,  North  and  South  America ;  for  he 
declares,  in  so  many  words,  "Lo!  I  am  with  you  alway, 
even  unto  the  end  of  the  w&rldP^  He  is  a  Grod !  He  is  a 
God! 

He  takes  divine  honors.  He  calls  himself  the  Lord  of 
men,  the  Lord  of  angels,  the  Lord  of  devils.  Is  he  not? 
If  he  is  not,  then  he  is  the  greatest  fraud  that  was  ever 
enacted.  To-morrow  morning  a  man  comes  into  your 
store  in  New  York,  and  he  says,  "I  am  Mr.  Laird,  the 
great  ship-builder  of  Liverpool.  I  built  the  Alabama.  I 
have  built  a  great  many  fine  ships."  You  treat  him  with  a 
great  deal  of  consideration ;  but  you  find  out  after  a  while 
that  he  is  not  Mr.  Laird,  and  that  he  never  built  any  thing. 
What  is  that  man  ?  An  impostor.  Now,  Christ  said  that 
lie  built  the  earth  —  built  all  things.  Did  he  build  the 
earth,  or  did  he  not?     If  he  did,  he  was  a  God;  if  he  did 


THE  SUPERHUMAN  JESUS.  401 

not,  he  was  an  impostor.  A  man  with  a  Jewish  counte- 
nance and  German  accent  comes  into  your  store.  He  says, 
"I  am  Kothschild,  the  banker,  of  London.  I  hold  the 
wealth  of  nations  in  my  vest-pocket.  I  loaned  that  mon- 
ey to  Italy  and  to  Austria."  You  treat  him  with  a  great 
deal  of  consideration  for  a  while ;  but  suppose  you  find 
out  that  he  is  not  a  banker,  that  he  does  not  own  a  single 
dollar  in  all  the  world?  What  is  that  man?  An  impos- 
tor. Now,  Christ  comes,  and  he  says  he  owns  this  world, 
he  owns  the  next,  he  owns  all  the  glories  of  land  and  sea; 
he  professes  to  be  vast  in  his  possessions.  Is  he  in  posses- 
sion of  all  these  things?  Does  be  own  them  all?  If  he 
does  not,  what  is  he?  An  impostor.  A  man  with  vener- 
able aspect  and  gray  beard  comes  into  the  White  House  at 
Washington.  He  says  to  the  President,  "I  am  King  Wil- 
liam of  Germany.  I  have  come  over  incognito  for  the  pur- 
pose of  recreation  and  amusement.  I  gained  the  victory 
at  Sedan.  I  have  castles  in  Berlin  and  Dresden."  Sup- 
pose after  a  while  the  President  finds  that  he  has  no  cas- 
tles, and  that  he  is  not  the  king ;  what  is  he,  then  ?  An 
impostor.  Now,  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  professed  to  be 
king,  eternal,  immortal,  invisible,  the  only  wise  God.  If 
he  was  not,  what  was  he?  I  appeal  to  your  common 
sense.  He  was  either  God,  or  he  was  a  villain.  Strauss 
saw  that  alternative,  and  he  says  that  Christ  was  sinful  in 
taking  homage  that  did  not  belong  to  him.  Renan  saw 
that  alternative,  and  says  that  Christ,  not  through  his  own 
fault,  but  through  the  fault  of  others,  lost  some  of  the  puri- 
ty of  his  conscience,  and  slyly  intimates  that  dishonorable 
women  may  have  damaged  his  soul.  Any  thing  but  admit 
that  Christ  is  God. 

I  have  shown  you  that  Christ  was  God,  from  what  in- 


402  THE  SUPERHUMAN  JESUS. 

spired  men  have  said  of  him,  and  from  what  he  said  of 
himself;  now  I  want  to  show  you  that  he  was  God  from 
his  wonderful  achievements.  I  suppose  that  all  believe 
the  Bible.  If  you  do  not,  what  do  you  do  in  the  Brook- 
lyn Tabernacle?  Why  do  you  not  go  over  to-day  and 
join  the  infidel  club  on  Broadway  ?  Why  do  you  not  go 
and  kiss  the  foot  of  the  new  statue  of  Tom  Paine  they  are 
rearing  in  Boston?  Why  do  you  not  take  your  hat,  and, 
not  stealing  the  hymn-book,  go  out  and  find  associates 
among  men  who  do  not  believe  in  the  Word  of  God,  the 
only  foundation  for  good  government  and  for  common 
honesty?  We  in  this  church  are  among  the  deluded 
souls  and  the  narrow  heads  who  believe  the  whole  Bible, 
and  take  it  down  in  one  swallow  as  easily  as  you  take 
down  a  ripe  strawberry.  Supposing  that  you  admit  the 
Bible  to  be  true,  let  us  go  out,  and  see  the  Saviour's 
achievements — surgical,  alimentary,  marine,  mortuary. 

Surgical  achievements?  Did  you  ever  in  all  the  scien- 
tific journals  of  the  world  see  such  wonderful  operations  as 
he  performed?  He  used  no  knife.  He  carried  no  splints. 
He  employed  no  compress.  He  never  made  a  patient 
squirm  under  cauterization.  He  never  tied  an  artery,  and 
yet,  behold  him.  With  one  word  he  stuck  fast  Malchus's. 
amputated  ear.  He  stirred  dust  and  spittle  into  a  salve, 
with  which  he  made  the  man  who  was  born  blind,  with- 
out optic  nerve,  cornea,  or  crystalline  lens,  open  his  eyes  on 
the  glorious  sunlight.  He  beat  music  on  the  drum  of  the 
deaf  ear.  He  straightened  a  woman  who,  through  contrac- 
tion of  muscles,  had  been  bent  almost  double  for  nigh  two 
decades.  He  made  a  man  who  had  not  used  his  limbs  for 
thirty-eight  years  shoulder  his  mattress  and  walk  off'.  Sir 
Astley  Cooper,  Abernethy,  and  Valentine  Mott  stood  pow- 


THE  SUPERHUMAN  JESUS.  403 

erless  before  a  withered  arm.  This  doctor  of  omni[)otent 
surgery  comes  up  to  the  man  with  the  lifeless,  useless, 
shriveled  arm,  and  he  says  to  him,  "Stretch  forth  thj 
hand."  The  man  stretched  it  forth  just  as  good  as  the 
other.     This  was  a  God  !     This  was  a  God ! 

Alimentary  achievements  ?  A  lad  comes  with  five  loaves, 
with  which  he  expected  to  make  a  speculation  ;  perhaps 
having  bought  them  for  five  pennies  and  expecting  to  sell 
them  for  ten  pennies,  and  thus  double  his  money.  Lo! 
Christ  takes  those  loaves,  and  from  them  performs  a  miia- 
cle  with  which  he  satisfies  seven  thousand  famishing  })eo- 
ple.  When  the  Saviour's  mother  went  into  a  neighbor's 
house  to  help  get  up  a  wedding  party,  and  by  a  calculation 
she  saw  that  they  had  made  a  mistake  in  the  amount  of 
beverage  that  w^as  requisite,  she  calls  Christ  for  help;  and 
Christ,  to  relieve  the  awkward  embarrassment,  not  through 
slow  decay  of  fermentation,  but  by  one  word,  makes  a  hun- 
dred and  thirty  gallons  of  pure  wine. 

Marine  achievements?  Do  you  not  remember  how  he 
brought  around  a  whole  school  of  fish  into  the  net  of  the 
men  who  were  mourning  over  their  poor  luck,  and  how 
they  had  to  halloo  to  the  people  in  the  other  boat,  and 
then  both  ships  were  loaded  down  to  the  water's  edge  with 
game,  so  that  the  sailors  had  to  walk  cautiously  from  lar- 
board to  starboard  lest  the  boat  sink?  And  then  when 
the  squall  came  down  through  the  mountain  gorge  to  the 
water,  and  Gennesaret  with  long  white  locks  of  foam  rose 
up  to  battle  it,  and  the  vessel  dropped  into  the  trough,  and 
shipped  a  sea,  and  the  loosened  sails  cracked  in  the  tor- 
nado, how  Christ  rose  from  the  back  pa  it  of  the  vessel, 
and  came  on  across  the  staggering  ship  until  he  caine  to 
the  prow  ;  and,  wiping  the  spray  from  his  forehead,  hushed 


404  THE  SUPERHUMAN  JESUS. 

the  crying  tempest  on  the  knee  of  his  omnipotence?  Oli, 
was  it  a  man  who  wrestled  down  the  storm  ?  Was  it  a 
man  who  with  both  feet  trampled  Gennesaret  into  a  smooth 
floor? 

But  look  at  his  mortuary  achievements.  Let  all  the 
psychologists  and  anatomists  of  the  world  go  to  West- 
minster Abbey,  and  try  to  wake  Queen  Elizabeth,  or  Henry 
VIII.  All  the  ingenuity  of  man  never  yet  brought  the 
dead  to  life.  But  look  at  that  dead  girl  in  Capernaum. 
What  a  pity  that  she  should  die  so  early,  and  when  the 
world  is  so  fair!  She  is  only  twelve  years  old.  Feel  of 
the  hands.  Feel  of  the  brow.  Dead.  Dead.  The  house 
is  full  of  uproar  and  wailing.  What  does  Christ  do  ?  He 
comes  and  takes  that  little  girl  by  the  hand,  and  no  sooner 
has  he  touched  her  hand  than  her  eyes  open,  and  her  heart 
starts,  and  the  white  lily  of  death  flushes  into  the  red  rose 
of  life,  and  she  rushes  into  the  arms  of  her  rejoicing  rela- 
tives. Who  was  it  that  raised  her  up  ?  Was  it  a  man,  or 
was  it  a  God  ? 

What  is  that  crying  in  Bethany  ?  Mary  crying,  Martha 
crying,  Jesus  crying,  and  the  neighbors  crying.  What  is 
the  matter?  Lazarus  is  dead.  The  sisters  think  they  will 
never  again  see  him,  never  have  him  sit  at  the  table  again. 
Poor  things!  Since  their  father  died  they  have  depended 
upon  Lazarus  for  almost  every  thing.  Jesus  comes  down 
to  the  excavation  in  the  rock,  in  one  of  the  side  niches  of 
which  Lazarus  sleeps  in  death.  Jesus  generally  spoke  in 
gentle  articulations,  but  now  he  lets  out  his  voice  to  full 
strength,  until  it  rings  through  all  the  labyrinths  and 
avenues  of  the  rock,  "  Lazarus,  come  forth !"  And  Laz- 
arus slides  down  from  the  side  niche  into  the  main  avenue 
of  the  rock,  and  stands  a  living  man  before  the  abashed 


THE  SUPERHUMAN  JESUS.  405 

and  confounded  spectators.  Who  was  it  tbat  stood  at  the 
mouth  of  that  cave,  and  uttered  that  potent  word?  Was 
it  a  man?  Tell  that  to  the  lunatics  in  Blooniingdale  Asy- 
lum. It  was  Christ,  the  everywhere-present,  the  everlast- 
ing, the  omniscient,  the  omnipotent  God! 

But  there  is  one  test  which  will  show  you  whether  Christ 
is  God  or  not.  The  recital  of  that  verse  ought  to  blanch 
the  cheeks  of  some  with  alarm,  and  kindle  the  faces  of 
others  with  eternal  sunrise,  "We  must  all  appear  before 
the  judgment-seat  of  Christ."  The  world  will  be  stunned 
by  a  blow  that  will  make  it  stagger  mid-heaven ;  the  stars 
will  scatter  like  dried  leaves  in  an  equinox ;  the  grave-yards 
"will  unroll  the  bodies,  and  the  clouds  will  unroll  the  spirits, 
and  soul  and  flesh  will  come  together  in  incorruptible  con- 
junction. Hark  to  the  loud  wash  of  the  retreating  sea,  and 
the  baying  of  the  advancing  thunders,  and  the  sweeping  of 
winged  cohorts !  Smoke,  and  darkness,  and  fire,  and  earth- 
quake, and  shouting,  shouting,  shouting,  wailing,  wailing, 
wailing.  On  the  one  side,  in  piled-up  galleries  of  light, 
are  the  one  hundred  and  forty  and  four  thousand — yea,  the 
quintillions  of  the  saved ;  and  as  they  take  their  seats  I 
feel  as  if  I  must  drop  under  the  insufferable  radiance.  On 
the  other  side  are  piled  up,  in  galleries  of  thunder-cloud, 
the  frowning,  glaring,  dying  populations  of  the  wrath  to 
come.  Before  me,  and  between  the  two  galleries,  is  a 
throne.  It  is  very  high.  It  stands  on  two  burnished  pil- 
lars— justice  and  merc3\  It  is  stupendous  with  awards 
and  condemnations.  Look;  but  half  hide  your  eyes,  lest 
they  be  put  out  in  the  excess  of  vision.  There  is  a  throne, 
but  no  one  is  seated  on  it.  Who  shall  occupy  it?  Will 
you  go  up  and  take  it?  "  No,"  you  say  ;  "  I  am  only  dust 
and  ashes."     Show  me  some  man  that  is  fit  to  take  it, 


406  THE  SUFERUmiAN  JESUS. 

in  ill!  tlie  ages.  Lord  Mansfield?  No.  Solomon?  No. 
Isaiah?  No.  Paul?  No.  Their  foot  would  consume  at 
the  first  touch  of  the  step  of  that  throne.  Even  Gabriel 
dare  not  go  up  on  it.  Michael,  the  archangel,  would  rather 
bow  down,  pulling  his  right  wing  over  his  left,  and  both 
over  his  face,  and  cry,  "  Holy  !"  But  here  is  One  ascend- 
ing that  throne.  His  back  is  toward  us.  He  goes  step 
above  step,  height  above  height,  until  he  comes  to  the 
apex.  Then,  turning  around,  so  that  all  nations  can  see 
him,  we  behold  it  is  Christ;  and  all  earth  and  heaven  and 
hell  fall  on  the  knee,  and  cry  out,  "  It  is  a  God !  It  is  a 
God!" 

There  is  great  comfort  in  my  subject.  It  is  God  who 
came  down  from  Jesus  Christ  to  save  us.  Do  you  think 
only  a  man  could  have  made  an  atonement  for  millions  of 
the  race?  Does  your  common  sense  teach  you  that?  I 
tell  you  if  Christ  is  not  God,  the  redemption  of  our  race  is 
a  dead  failure.  We  want  a  divine  arm  to  lift  our  burden. 
We  want  a  divine  endurance  to  carry  our  pang.  AVe  M\int 
a  divine  expiation  to  take  away  our  sin ;  and  "  Christ 
came,  who  is  over  all,  God  blessed  forever.     Amen.'" 

God  also  comes  down  in  Christ  to  comfort  you.  Some- 
times our  troubles  are  so  great,  human  sympathy  does  not 
seem  to  be  sufficient  for  them.  O  ye  who  cried  all  last 
night  because  of  loneliness  and  bereavement,  I  want  to 
tell  you  that  it  is  your  Maker  and  your  God  that  comes 
this  day  to  comfort  you.  When  there  are  children  in  the 
house,  and  the  mother  dies,  then  you  know  that  the  father 
has  to  be  more  gentle  than  ever,  and  he  has  to  act  two 
parts  in  that  household.  And  it  seems  as  if  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  looked  down  and  saw  your  helplessness,  and 
he  proposed  to  be  both  father  and  mother  to  jonv  sick 


TH?:  SUPElillUMAN  JESUS.  407 

soul.  He  comes  in  the  strength  of  the  one,  and  in  the  ten- 
derness of  the  other,  and  he  says,  "As  a  father  pitieth  his 
children,  so  I  pity  you."  "As  one  whom  his  mother  com- 
forteth,  so  will  I  comfort  you."  Do  you  not  feel  the  hush 
of  that  divine  lullaby?  Put  down  your  tired  head  on 
the  heaving  bosom  of  that  Divine  compassion,  and  let  him 
put  his  arms  around  you,  and  say,  "  O  widowed  soul !  I 
will  be  thy  husband  and  thy  God.  0  orphaned  ones!  I 
will  be  your  protector.  Don't  cry.  Don't  cry."  And 
then  he  will  put  his  hand  on  your  eyelids,  and  sweep  that 
hand  down  on  the  cheek,  wiping  away  all  the  tears  of  lone- 
liness and  bereavement.  Oh,  what  a  loving,  tender,  sym- 
pathetic God  has  come  for  us!  I  do  not  ask  you,  this 
morning,  to  lay  hold  of  God;  you  may  be  too  weak  for 
that.  I  do  not  ask  you  even  to  pray ;  you  may  be  too  be- 
wildered for  that.  I  only  ask  you  just  to  let  go,  and  fall 
back  into  the  arms  of  Everlasting  Strength. 

You  and  I  will  soon  hear  the  click  of  the  latch  of  the 
sepulchre.  We  want  an  Almighty  Christ  to  go  with  us. 
I  wonder  if  the  friend  of  Lazarus  will  be  about.  Our 
friends  will  take  us  with  strong  arms,  and  lay  us  down  in 
the  dust ;  but  they  can  not  bring  us  back  again.  I  would 
be  scared  with  infinite  fright  if  I  thought  I  should  have  to 
stay  there  forever.  But  no.  Christ  will  come  with  a  glo- 
rious iconoclasm,  and  split  and  grind  up  the  granite,  and 
let  us  come  out.  O  the  resurrection  !  What  kind  of  a 
resurrection  will  it  be? 

A  young  woman  was  recently  dying,  without  any  hope, 
and  she  said  to  her  mother,  in  the  closing  hour,  "Mother, 
I  am  going  away  from  you,  and  I  am  so  afraid."  When 
you  leave  this  world,  when  j'ou  bid  farewell  to  those  with 
whom  you  have  been  associated,  and  in  the  last  great  day 


4,0S  THE  SUPERHmiAN  JESUS. 

■will  you  be  afraid?  If  we  have  on  that  day  Christ,  the 
Omnipotent  Saviour,  on  our  side,  all  shall  be  well.  If  the 
resurrection  comes  upon  a  spring  day,  and  all  the  flowers 
are  blooming  around  our  graves,  how  pleasant  it  would  be 
to  take  up  the  brightest  one  of  all  those  flowers,  and  put 
it  in  the  scarred  hand  of  Him  who  died  for  us!  to  gather 
up  the  most  redolent  of  them  all,  and  twist  them  into  a  gar- 
land for  the  brow  that  was  stuck  with  the  thorns  !  On  that 
day,  when  Jesus  is  surrounded  by  all  the  dominions  of  the 
saved,  we  will  see  what  an  awful  libel  it  was  when  men 
said  that  Christ  was  only  a  man  ;  and  then  you  will  declare, 
with  unparalleled  emphasis,  "  Christ  came,  who  is  over 
all,  God  blessed  forever.  Amen."  Oh,  would  you  not  like 
to  join  in  that  "Amen,"  ye  who  believe  this  Christ  is  the 
eternal  God  ?  You  shall  have  my  permission.  Let  your 
"Amen "  be  the  doxology  of  this  whole  assemblage ! 
"Christ  came,  who  is  over  all,  God  blessed  forever! 
Amen." 


WRECKED  FOR  TWO    WORLDS.  409 


WEECKED  FOR  TWO  WORLDS. 

"  Lest  that  by  any  means,  when  I  have  preached  to  others,  I  myself  should 
be  a  castaway." — 1  Corinthians  ix.,  27. 

MINISTERS  of  religion  may  finally  be  lost.  The  apos- 
tie,  in  tlie  text,  indicates  that  possibilit3^  Gown  and 
gurplice  and  cardinal's  red  hat  are  no  security.  Cardinal 
Wolsey,  after  having  been  petted  by  kings,  and  having 
entertained  foreign  embassadors  at  Hampton  Court,  died  in 
darkness.  One  of  the  most  eminent  ministers  of  religion 
that  this  country  has  ever  known,  plunged  into  sin  and 
died,  his  heart,  in  j^ost-morlem  examination,  found  to  have 
been,  not  figuratively,  but  literally,  broken.  0  ministers 
of  Christ!  because  we  have  diplomas  of  graduation,  and 
hands  of  ordination  on  the  head,  and  address  consecrated 
assemblages,  that  is  no  reason  why  we  shall  necessarily 
reach  the  realm  celestial.  The  clergyman  must  go  through 
the  same  gate  of  pardon  as  the  layman.  The  preacher 
may  get  his  audience  into  heaven,  and  he  himself  miss  it. 
There  have  been  cases  of  shipwreck  where  all  on  board 
escaped  excepting  the  captain.  Alas !  if,  having  "  preached 
to  others,  I  myself  should  be  a  castaway."     God  forbid  it. 

I  have  examined  some  of  the  commentaries  to  see  what 
they  thought  about  this  word  "  castaway,"  and  I  find  that 
they  differ  in  regard  to  the  figure  used,  while  they  agree  in 
regard  to  the  meaning.  So  I  shall  make  my  own  selection, 
and  take  it  in  a  nautical  and  sea-fiiring  sense,  and  show  you 

18 


410  WRECKED  FOR  TWO   WORLDS. 

that  men  may  become  spiritual  castaways,  and  how  finally 
they  drift  into  that  calamity. 

We  are  a  sea-board  town.  You  have  all  stood  on  the 
beach.  Many  of  you  have  crossed  the  ocean.  Some  of  you 
have  managed  vessels  in  great  stress  of  weather.  There  is 
a  sea-captain  ;  and  there  is  another ;  and  yonder  is  another ; 
and  there  are  a  goodly  number  of  you  who,  though  once 
you  did  not  know  the  difference  between  a  brig  and  a  bark, 
and  between  a  diamond  knot  and  a  sprit -sheet -sail  knot, 
and  although  you  could  not  point  out  the  weather -cross 
jack- brace,  and  though  you  could  not  man  the  fore  clue- 
garnets,  now  jT'OU  are  as  familiar  with  a  ship  as  3'ou  are 
with  your  right  hand,  and,  if  it  were  necessary,  you  could 
take  a  vessel  clear  across  to  the  mouth  of  the  Mersey  with- 
out the  loss  of  a  single  sail.  Well,  there  is  a  dark  night  in 
your  memory  of  the  sea.  The  vessel  became  unmanagea- 
ble. You  saw  it  was  scudding  toward  the  shore.  You 
heard  the  cry,  "Breakers  ahead!  Land  on  the  lee  bow!" 
The  vessel  struck  the  rock,  and  you  felt  the  deck  breaking 
up  under  your  feet,  and  you  were  a  castaway,  as  when  the 
Hercules  drove  on  the  coast  of  Caffraria,  as  when  the  Portu- 
guese brig  went  staving,  splitting,  grinding,  crashing  on  the 
Goodwins.  But  whether  you  have  followed  the  sea  or  not, 
you  all  understand  the  figure  when  I  tell  you  that  there 
are  men  who  by  their  sins  and  temptations  are  thrown 
helpless!  Driven  before  the  gale!  Wrecked  for  two 
worlds  !     Cast  away  !  cast  away  ! 

By  talking  with  some  sailors,  I  have  found  out  that  there 
are  three  or  four  causes  for  such  a  calamity  to  a  vessel. 
I  have  been  told  that  it  sometimes  comes /rom  a^eating  false 
lights  on  the  beach.  This  was  often  so  in  olden  times.  It  is 
not  many  years  ago,  indeed,  that  vagabonds  used  to  wander 


^y RECKED  FOR  TWO   WORLDS.  411 

up  and  down  the  beach,  getting  vessels  ashore  in  the  night, 
throwing  up  false  lights  in  their  presence  and  deceiving 
them,  that  they  might  despoil  and  ransack  them.  All  kinds 
of  infernal  arts  were  used  to  accomplish  this.  And  one 
night,  on  the  Cornish  coast,  when  the  sea  was  coming  in 
fearfully,  some  villains  took  a  lantern  and  tied  it  to  a  horse, 
and  led  the  horse  up  and  down  the  beach,  the  lantern  sway- 
ing to  the  motion  of  the  horse,  and  a  sea-captain  in  the  off- 
ing saw  it,  and  made  up  his  mind  that  he  was  not  anywhere 
near  the  shore,  for  he  said,  "  There's  a  vessel ;  that  must  be 
a  vessel,  for  it  has  a  movable  light,"  and  he  had  no  appre- 
hension until  he  heard  the  rocks  grating  on  the  ship's  bot- 
tom, and  it  w^ent  to  pieces,  and  the  villains  on  shore  gath- 
ered up  the  packages  and  the  treasures  that  were  washed 
to  the  land.  And  I  have  to  tell  you  that  there  are  a 
multitude  of  souls  ruined  by  false  lights  on  the  beach.  In 
the  dark  night  of  man's  danger,  Universalism  goes  up  and 
down  the  shore,  shaking  its  lantern,  and  men  look  off  and 
take  that  flickering  and  expiring  wick  as  the  signal  of  safe- 
ty, and  the  cry  is,  "Heave  the  main -topsail  to  the  mast! 
All  is  well !"  when  sudden  destruction  cometh  upon  them, 
and  they  shall  not  escape.  So  there  are  all  kinds  of  lan- 
terns swung  on  the  beach — philosophical  lanterns,  educa- 
tional lanterns,  humanitarian  lanterns.  Men  look  at  them, 
and  are  deceived,  when  there  is  nothing  but  God's  eternal 
light-house  of  the  Gospel  that  can  keep  them  from  becom- 
ing castaways.  Once,  on  Wolf  Crag  Light-house,  they  tried 
to  build  a  copper  figure  of  a  wolf  with  its  mouth  open,  so 
that,  the  storms  beating  into  it,  the  wolf  would  howl  forth 
the  danger  to  mariners  that  might  be  coming  anywhere 
near  the  coast.  Of  course  it  was  a  failure.  And  so  all 
new  inventions  for  the  saving  of  man's  soul  are  unavailing. 


412  WRECKED  FOE  TWO    WORLDS. 

What  the  human  race  wants  is  a  light  bursting  forth  from 
the  cross  standing  on  the  great  headlands — the  light  of  par- 
don, the  light  of  comfort,  the  light  of  heaven.  You  might 
better  go  to-night,  and  destroy  all  the  great  light-houses  on 
the  dangerous  coasts — the  Barnegat  Light-house,  the  Fast- 
net  Rock  Light-house,  the  Skerryvore  Light-house,  the 
Longship's  Light-house,  the  Hollyhead  Light-house — than 
to  put  out  God's  great  ocean  lamp — the  Gospel.  Woe  to 
those  who  swing  false  lanterns  on  the  beach  till  men  crash 
in  and  perish !     Cast  away  !  cast  away  ! 

By  talking  with  sailors,  I  have  heard  also  that  sometimes 
ships  come  to  this  calamity  by  the  sudden  swoop  of  a  tem- 
2wst.  For  instance,  a  vessel  is  sailing  along  in  the  East  In- 
dies, and  there  is  not  a  single  cloud  on  the  sky ;  but  sud- 
denly the  breeze  freshens,  and  there  are  swift  feet  on  the 
ratlines,  and  the  cry  is,  "  'Way  !  haul  away  there  !"  but,  be- 
fore they  can  square  the  booms  and  tarpaulin  the  hatch- 
ways, the  vessel  is  groaning  and  creaking  in  the  grip  of 
a  tornado,  and  falls  over  into  the  trough  of  the  sea,  and, 
broadside-on,  rolls  on  to  the  beach  and  keels  over,  leaving 
the  crew  to  struggle  in  the  merciless  surf  Cast  away ! 
cast  away !  And  so  I  have  to  tell  you  that  there  are  thou- 
sands of  men  destroyed  through  the  sudden  swoop  of  temp- 
tations. Some  great  inducement  to  worldliness,  or  to  sen- 
suality, or  to  high  temper,  or  to  some  form  of  dissipation, 
comes  upon  them.  If  they  had  time  to  examine  their  Bi- 
ble, if  they  had  time  to  consult  with  their  friends,  if  they 
bad  time  to  deliberate,  they  could  stand  it;  but  the  temp- 
tation came  so  suddenly — a  euroclydon  on  the  Mediterra- 
nean, a  whirlwind  of  the  Caribbean.  One  awful  surge  of 
temptation,  and  they  perish.  And  so  we  often  hear  the 
old  story,  "  I  hadn't  seen  my  friend  in  a  great  many  years. 


WRECKED  FOE  TWO   WORLDS.  413 

We  were  very  glad  to  meet.  He  said  I  must  drink,  and 
he  took  me  by  the  arm  and  pressed  me  along,  and  filled 
the  cup  until  the  bubbles  ran  over  the  edge,  and  in  an  evil 
moment  all  my  good  resolutions  were  swept  away,  and,  to 
the  outraging  of  God  and  my  own  soul,  I  fell."  Or  the 
story  is,  "I  had  hard  work  to  support  my  family.  I  knew 
that  by  one  false  entry,  by  one  deception,  by  one  embez- 
zlement, I  might  spring  out  free  from  all  my  trouble;  but 
the  temptation  came  upon  me  so  fiercely  I  could  not  think. 
I  did  wrong,  and  having  done  wrong  once,  I  could  not 
stop,"  Oh,  it  is  the  first  step  that  costs ;  the  second  is 
easier,  and  the  third,  and  on  to  the  last.  Once  having 
broken  loose  from  the  anchor,  it  is  not  so  easy  to  tie  the 
parted  strands.  How  often  it  is  that  men  perish  for  the 
reason  that  the  temptation  comes  from  some  unexpected 
quarter!  as  vessels  lie  in  Margate  Eoads,  safe  from  south- 
west winds;  but  the  wind  changing  to  the  north-east,  they 
are  driven  helpless,  and  go  down.  Oh  that  God  would 
have  mercy  upon  those  upon  whom  there  comes  the  sud- 
den swoop  of  temptation,  that  they  perish  not,  becoming,  for 
this  world  and  the  world  to  come,  cast  away  !  cast  away  ! 

By  talking  with  sailors,  I  have  found  out  also  that  some 
vessels  come  to  this  calamity  through  sheer  recklessness. 
There  are  three  million  men  who  follow  the  sea  for  a  liv- 
ing. It  is  a  simple  fact  that  the  average  of  human  life  on 
the  sea  is  less  than  twelve  years.  This  comes  from  the 
fact  that  men  by  familiarity  with  danger  sometimes  be- 
come reckless — the  captain,  the  helmsman,  the  stoker,  the 
man  on  the  lookout,  become  reckless,  and  in  nine  out  of 
ten  shipwrecks  it  is  found  out  that  some  one  was  awfully 
to  blame.  So  I  have  to  tell  you  that  men  lose  their  souls 
through  sheer  recklessness.     There  are  thousands  of  mv 


414  WRECKED  FOR  TWO   WORLDS. 

friends  in  this  house  to-night  who  do  not  care  where  they 
are  in  spiritual  things.  They  do  not  know  whether  they 
are  sailing  toward  heaven  or  toward  hell,  and  the  sea  is 
black  with  piratical  hulks  that  would  grapple  them  with 
hooks  of  steel,  and  blindfold  them,  and  make  them  "  walk 
the  plank."  They  do  not  know  what  the  next  moment 
may  bring  forth.  Drifting  in  their  theology.  Drifting  in 
their  habits.  Drifting  in  regard  to  all  the  future.  No 
God,  no  Christ,  no  settled  anticipations  of  eternal  felicity ; 
but  all  the  time  coming  nearer  and  nearer  to  a  dangerous 
coast.  Some  of  them  are  on  fire  with  evil  habit,  and  they 
shall  burn  on  the  sea,  the  charred  hulk  tossed  up  on  the 
barren  beach  of  the  lost  world.  Many  of  them  with  great 
troubles,  financial  troubles,  domestic  troubles,  social  trou- 
bles; but  they  never  pray  for  comfort.  With  an  aggrava- 
tion of  sin  that  stirs  up  the  ire  of  God,  they  pray  for  no 
pardon.  They  do  not  steer  for  the  light-ship  that  dances 
in  gladness  at  the  mouth  of  heaven's  harbor;  reckless  as 
to  where  they  come  out,  drifting  farther  from  God,  farther 
from  early  religious  influences,  farther  from  their  present 
happiness,  farther  from  heaven.  And,  what  is  the  worst 
thing  about  it  is,  that  they  are  taking  their  families  along 
with  them ;  and  if  one  perish,  perhaps  they  will  all  perish ; 
and  the  way  one  goes,  the  probability  is  they  will  all  go. 
Yet  no  anxiety.  As  unconscious  of  danger  as  the  passen- 
gers on  board  the  Arctic  one  moment  before  the  Vesta 
crashed  into  her.  Wrapped  up  in  the  business  of  the 
store,  not  remembering  that  soon  they  must  quit  all  their 
earthly  possessions.  Absorbed  in  their  social  position,  not 
knowing  that  very  soon  they  will  have  attended  the  last 
levee,  and  whirled  in  the  last  schottisch.  They  do  not 
deliberately  choose  to  be  ruined;  neither  did  the  French 


WliEGKED  FOR   TWO    WORLDS.  415 

frigate  Medusa  aim  for  the  Arouin  Banks,  but  tliere  it 
went  to  pieces.  O  ^yc  reckless  souls!  I  wish  that  to-night 
I  could  wake  you  up  with  some  great  perturbation.  The 
perils  are  so  augmented,  the  chances  of  escape  ai'e  so  few ; 
you  will  die  just  as  certainly  as  you  sit  there,  unless  you 
bestir  yourself.  I  fear,  my  brother,  you  are  becoming  a 
castaway.  You  are  making  no  effort,  you  are  putting 
forth  no  exertion  for  escape.  You  throw  out  no  oar. 
You  take  no  soundings.  You  watch  no  compass.  You 
are  not  calculating  your  bearings  while  the  wind  is  abaft, 
and  yonder  is  a  long  line  of  foam  bounding  the  horizon, 
and  you  will  be  pushed  on  toward  it,  and  thousands  have 
perished  there,  and  you  are  driving  in  the  same  direction. 
Ready  about!  Down  helm!  Hard  down!  or  in  the  next 
five  minutes,  or  four  minutes,  or  three  minutes,  or  tw'o  min- 
utes, or  one  minute,  you  may  be  a  castaway. 

O  unforgiven  soul!  if  3^ou  could  see  your  peril  before 
God  to-night  on  account  of  your  lifetime  sin  and  transgres- 
sion, there  would  be  fiftj^  men  who  would  rush  through 
this  aisle  crying  for  mercy,  and  there  would  be  fifty  who 
would  rush  through  that  aisle  crying  for  merc}^,  and  they 
would  be  as  men  are  when  they  rush  across  the  deck  of  a 
foundering  ship,  and  there  would  be  thousands  of  arms 
tossed  up  from  the  galleries ;  and  as  these  Christian  men 
rose  up  to  help  them,  it  would  be  as  when  a  vessel  drives 
on  the  rocks,  and  on  the  shore  the  command  is,  "Man  the 
life-boat!  Man  the  life-boat!  Pull,  my  lads,  pull  !  A 
steamer  with  two  hundred  on  board  making  the  last 
plunge  !"  Why  does  your  cheek  turn  pale,  and  your  heart 
pound  until,  listening,  you  hear  it?  It  is  because,  my  dear 
brother,  you  realize  that,  owing  to  your  lifetime  sin  and 
rejection  of  God's  mercj,  you  are  in  peril,  and  I  really  be- 


416  WRECKED  FOR   TWO    WORLDS. 

lieve  tliere  are  thousands  of  people  in  this  house  this  mo- 
ment, saying  within  themselves,  "  What  shall  I  do?"  Do? 
Do  ?  Why,  my  brother,  do  what  any  ship  does  when  it 
is  in  trouble.  Lift  a  distress-signal.  There  is  a  flash,  and 
a  boom.  You  listen  and  you  look.  A  vessel  is  in  trouble. 
The  distress-gun  is  sounded,  or  a  rocket  is  sent  up,  or  a 
blanket  is  lifted,  or  a  bundle  of  rags — any  thing  to  catch 
the  eye  of  the  passing  craft.  So  if  you  want  to  be  taken 
off  the  wreck  of  your  sin,  you  must  lift  a  distress- signal. 
Kise.  Lift  your  hand.  Cry  out  for  mercy.  The  publi- 
can lifted  the  distress-signal  when  he  cried,  "  God,  be  merci- 
ful to  me  a  sinner!"  Peter  lifted  the  distress-signal  when 
he  said,  "Lord,  save  me — I  perish  !"  The  blind  man  lifted 
the  distress-signal  when  he  said,  "  Lord,  that  my  eyes  may 
be  opened!"  The  jailer  lifted  the  distress-signal  when  he 
said,  "  What  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ?"  And  help  will 
never  come  to  your  soul  until  you  lift  such  a  signal  as 
that.  You  must  make  some  demonstration,  give  some 
sign,  make  some  heaven -piercing  outcry  for  help,  lifting 
the  distress-signal  for  the  church's  prayer,  lifting  the  dis- 
tress-signal for  Heaven's  pardon.  Pray  !  pray  !  The  voice 
of  the  Lord  to-night  sounds  in  your  ears,  "In  me  is  thy 
help."  Too  proud  to  raise  such  a  signal,  too  proud  to  be 
saved. 

There  was  an  old  sailor  thumping  about  in  a  small  boat 
in  a  tempest.  The  larger  vessel  had  gone  down.  He  felt 
he  must  die.  The  surf  was  breaking  over  the  boat,  and  he 
said :  "  I  took  off  my  life-belt  that  it  might  soon  be  over, 
and  I  thought  somewhat  indistinctly  about  my  friends  on 
shore,  and  then  I  bid  them  good-bye  like,  and  I  was  about 
sinking  back  and  giving  it  up,  when  I  saw  a  bright  star. 
The  clouds  were  breaking  away,  and  there  that  blessed 


WRECKED  FOR   TWO    WORLDS.  417 

star  shone  down  on  mc,  and  it  seemed  to  take  right  hold  of 
me;  and,  somehow — I  can  not  tell  how  it  was — but,  some- 
how, while  I  was  trying  to  watch  that  star,  it  seemed  to 
help  me  and  seemed  to  lift  me."  O  drowning  soul !  see 
you  not  the  glimmer  between  the  rifts  of  the  storm-cloud  ? 
Would  to  God  that  that  light  might  lay  hold  of  you  to- 
night ! 

"Death-struck,  I  ceased  the  tide  to  stem, 

When  suddenly  a  star  arose, 

It  was  the  Star  of  Bethlehem!" 

0  ye  castaways  1  God  is  doing  every  thing  to  save  you. 

Did  you  ever  hear  of  Lionel  Lukin?  He  was  the  in- 
ventor of  the  insubmergible  life-boat.  All  honor  is  due 
his  memory  by  sea-faring  men,  as  well  as  by  landsmen. 
How  many  lives  he  saved  by  his  invention  !  In  after-days 
that  invention  was  improved,  and  one  day  there  was  a  per- 
fect life-boat,  the  Northuniberland^  ready  at  Ramsgate.  The 
life -boat  being  ready,  to  test  it  the  crew  came  out  and 
leaped  on  the  gunwale  on  one  side  to  see  if  the  boat  would 
"upset;  it  was  impossible  to  upset  it.  Then,  amidst  the 
huzzas  of  excited  thousands,  that  boat  was  launched,  and 
it  has  gone  and  come,  picking  up  a  great  many  of  the  ship- 
wrecked. But  I  have  to  tell  you  to-night  of  a  grander 
launching,  and  from  the  dry-docks  of  heaven.  Word  came 
up  that  a  world  was  beating  on  the  rocks.  In  the  presence 
of  the  potentates  of  heaven  the  life-boat  of  the  world's  re- 
demption was  launched.  It  shoved  off  the  golden  sands 
amidst  angelic  hosannas.  The  surges  of  darkness  beat 
against  its  bow,  but  it  sailed  on,  and  it  comes  in  sight  to- 
night. It  comes  for  you,  it  comes  for  me.  Soul  1  soul ! 
get  into  it.  Make  one  leap  for  heaven.  This  is  your  last 
chance  for  life.     Jjct  that  boat  go  past,  and  there  remains 

18* 


418  WEECKED  FOR  TWO    WOELI)^. 

nothing  but  fearful  looking-for  of  judgment,  and  fiery  in- 
dignation which  shall  devour  the  adversary.  I  am. expect- 
ing that  there  will  be  whole  families  here  to-night  who  will 
get  into  that  life-boat. 

In  1838  the  Isabella  came  ashore  off  Hastings,  England. 
The  air  was  filled  with  soiinds — the  hoarse  sea-trumpet,  the 
crash  of  the  axes,  and  the  bellowing  of  the  tornado.  A  boat 
from  the  shore  came  under  the  stern  of  the  disabled  ves- 
sel. There  were  women  and  children  on  board  that  vessel. 
Some  of  the  sailors  jumped  into  tlie  small  boat,  and  said, 
"Now,  give  us  the  cliildren."  A  father  who  stood  on  the 
deck  took  his  first-born  and  threw  him  to  the  boat.  The 
sailors  caught  him  safely,  and  the  next,  and  the  next, 
to  the  last.  Still  the  sea  rocking,  the  storm  howling. 
"Now,"  said  the  sailors,  "now,  the  mother;"  and  she  leap- 
ed, and  was  saved.  The  boat  went  to  shore;  but  before  it 
got  to  the  shore  the  landsmen  were  so  impatient  to  help 
the  suffering  people  that  they  waded  clear  down  into  the 
sui-f,  with  blankets,  and  garments,  and  promises  of  help 
and  succor. 

I  have  to  hope  to-night  that  a  great  many  of  the  families 
here  are  going  to  be  saved,  and  saved  altogether.  Give  us 
that  child  for  Christ,  that  otlier  child,  that  other.  Give  us 
the  mother,  give  us  the  father,  the  whole  flimily.  They 
must  all  come  in.  All  heaven  wades  in  to  help  you.  I 
claim  this  whole  audience  for  God.  I  pick  not  out  one 
man  here  nor  one  man  there:  I  claim  this  whole  audience 
for  God.  There  are  sonie  of  you  who,  thiitj^  j^ears  ago,  were 
consecrated  to  Christ  by  your  parents  in  baptism.  Certain- 
ly I  am  not  stepping  over  the  right  bound  when  I  claim 
you  for  Jesus.  Then  there  are  many  here  who  have  been 
seekino;  God  for  a  oood  while,  and  am  I  not  right  in  claim- 


WRECKED  FOR   TWO    WORLDS.  419 

ing  you  for  Jesus?  Then,  thci'c  are  some  here  who  have 
been  fartlier  away.  I  saw  you  come  in  to-night  in  clusters 
— two,  tlii'ee,  and  four  men  together — and  you  drink,  and 
you  swear,  and  you  are  bringing  up  your  families  without 
an}'-  God  to  take  care  of  them  when  you  are  dead.  And 
I  claim  you,  my  bi'other;  I  claim  all  of  3'ou.  You  will 
have  to  come  to-night  to  the  throne  of  mercy.  God's  Holy 
Spirit  is  striving  now  with  you  iri'csistibly.  Although 
there  may  be  a  smile  on  your  lip,  there  are  agitation  and 
anxiety  in  your  heart.  You  will  not  come  at  my  invita- 
tion ;  you  will  come  at  God's  command. 

[At  this  point  in  Mr.  Talmage's  remarks,  one  of  the  windows  in  the  rear 
part  of  the  church  was  slammed  down  by  some  thoughtless  person.  The 
noise  alarmed  many  in  the  vast  congregation,  and  they  made  a  rush  for  the 
doors.  This  had  the  effect  of  alarming  others,  and  in  a  moment  six  thousand 
people  were  upon  their  feet.  Mr.  Talmage  cried  to  them  to  "sit  down." 
Tlie  presidcTit  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  ascertained  the  cause  of  the  noise, 
and  immediately  informed  Mr.  Talmage,  who  announced  it,  and  succeeded 
in  biinging  the  people  to  order  again.  That  jtart  of  the  congregation  who 
had  wisely  kejjt  their  seats  were  singing  the  Doxology  during  the  uproar. 
Nearly  all  of  those  who  had  left  the  building  returned  when  lliey  learned  the 
cause  of  their  fright,  and  Mr.  Talmage  continued  as  follows  :] 

What!  are  you  so  afraid  when  there  is  no  danger  at  all  ? 
Will  the  slamming- to  of  a  window  startle  six  thousand 
souls?  Would  God  that  you  were  as  cautious  about  eter- 
nal perils  as  you  are  about  the  perils  of  time!  If  that 
sliglit  noise  sends  you  to  your  feet,  what  will  you  do  when 
the  thunders  of  the  last  day  roll  through  earth  and  sky, 
and  the  mountains  comedown  in  avalanche  of  rock?  You 
cry  out  for  the  .safety  of  your  body  ;  why  not  cry  out  for 
the  safety  of  your  soul  ?  You  will  have  to  pray  some  time ; 
why  not  begin  now,  while  all  the  ripe  and  purple  clusters 


420  WRECKED  FOR  TWO   WORLDS. 

of  Divine  promise  bend  over  into  your  cup,  rather  than 
postpone  your  prayer  until  your  chance  is  past,  and  the 
night  drops,  and  the  sea  washes  you  out,  and  forever  and 
forever  and  forever  you  become  a  castaway  ? 


THE   END. 


^ 


Date  Due 


-11 '^>n 


